HSE programme reduces workplace accidents by 83%
TMD Friction Health & Safety programme reduces workplace accidents by 83 per cent over five years
- Vice President of HSE Lynn Edwards introduced the “Say No to Risk” programme upon joining TMD Friction in 2019
- The strategy empowers employees to “Say No to Risk,” identifying unsafe situations and potential for harm before an accident occurs
- TMD Friction invests EUR 400,000 per year to identify and eliminate critical life risks in order to protect its employees from harm
- The strategy has led to 83 per cent reduction in lost time accidents in five years as well as an increased culture of reporting
LEVERKUSEN, 26 April 2024
In honor of World Health and Safety at Work Day, leading brake manufacturer TMD Friction is celebrating five years of its Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) programme “Say No to Risk.” Since the introduction of the programme in 2019, the company has reduced its number of lost time accidents (LTAs) by 83 per cent. A lost time accident is defined as an injury sustained at work which prevents the employee from being able to carry out their duties for one or more working days.
In addition, the strategy has also encouraged a culture of reporting, allowing more unsafe situations and near misses to be identified and resolved before an accident occurs. The company invests EUR 400,000 per year to identify and eliminate the most serious category of risk, ‘critical life risks,’ in order to protect its employees from harm.
TMD Friction employs more than 4,200 people at 23 locations in 12 countries worldwide, including five locations in Germany: production plants in Essen, Coswig, and Hamm as well as its company headquarters in Leverkusen Schlebusch and a warehouse in Leverkusen Hitdorf. The same HSE standards apply at every location and are enforced through regular audits and independent validation.
“If people are happy, healthy, and not afraid to speak up, employee satisfaction is going to go up.”
–Lynn Edwards, Vice President
Lynn Edwards, Vice President of HSE at TMD Friction, says: “There will always be risks associated with industrial manufacturing and production machinery, but we are always looking for ways to improve health and safety at our facilities. At TMD Friction, we value our employees, we want them to be safe, and we want them to look forward to going to work every day and returning home with no injuries. If people are happy, healthy, and not afraid to speak up when there is a potential for harm, employee satisfaction is going to go up.”
What it means to Say No to Risk
Together with support from CEO David Baines and the leadership team, Lynn Edwards introduced the “Say No to Risk” initiative to TMD Friction in 2019 with the goal of reinforcing health and safety as a core value in TMD Friction’s culture. The strategy empowers individuals to change their behaviour to cut down on risk as early as possible by identifying and eliminating risky situations before an accident occurs. If an employee, contractor or visitor identifies a hazard, they are empowered to stop and say “no”, remove it, or warn others about it and report it.
TMD Friction has embedded its improvement strategy to reduce workplace injuries. Specific policies include favouring automated lifting systems over ladders, isolating the power source to a machine before beginning to work on it, and adding clear directives for managing mobile equipment separation via colour-coded walkways with barriers on warehouse and factory floors.
Where available, the company also uses technological solutions to reduce risk. Examples of these include forklifts equipped with proximity sensors that automatically slow down or stop if they get too close to a pedestrian, and cameras on the forklift forks to improve visibility for the operator.
A culture of reporting
When the “Say No to Risk” programme was adopted, TMD Friction initially saw an increase in the number of near misses and unsafe situations reported. This was due to an improved culture of reporting, where employees are empowered to identify risks and experience no repercussions for reporting them. In addition, if an accident does occur, TMD Friction handles it transparently and launches a thorough investigation, with the workforce given feedback of the findings.
“I believe a ‘mission zero’ strategy can have a negative effect on safety as this can encourage underreporting of incidents in order to achieve the ‘zero’ goal,” says Lynn Edwards. “An open culture on accident reporting provides a true picture of the issues associated with HSE. This then delivers a clear objective for risk reduction, as data becomes the means to target improvement.”
He continues: “To change mindsets to report all incidents is always a challenge. This is why we embedded ‘Say No to Risk’ into our hearts and minds. The more issues we know about, the more we can investigate, find the right solution for, and prevent in the future.”
This two-pronged approach – top down, with management cascading risk-reduction policies down to the different locations worldwide, and bottom-up, with employees empowered to recognise and report risks – has enabled TMD Friction to target improvement and gradually reduce its number of workplace accidents resulting in lost time,by 83 per cent in five years.