ArcelorMittal announces recommendations from dss+ workplace safety
audit
9 October 2024, 08:00 CET
ArcelorMittal (the 'Company' or the 'Group') has
today published the recommendations of the comprehensive dss+
workplace safety audit that was commissioned at the end of 2023,
against the backdrop of a clear necessity to strengthen Group
safety performance.
The audit, which was ongoing for nine months
across all geographies, functions and levels of the organization,
had three main scopes:
1. Fatality prevention
standards for the three main occupational risks leading to serious
injuries and fatalities (work at heights, vehicle driving and
energy isolation);
2. Process safety1
management focused on the highest risk assets; and
3. In depth assessments of
health and safety (H&S) systems, processes and capabilities;
governance and assurance processes; and data management.
Commenting, Aditya Mittal, Chief
Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal, said:
“Last October I said that we would take a hard look at our
safety performance, in order to identify areas for improvement, and
strengthen our actions, processes and culture to ensure that we can
prevent all serious accidents.
“To achieve our aim, we contracted dss+ to carry out an
extensive workplace safety audit across our operations in every
region of the world. Over the course of nine months, dss+ visited
more than 150 of our sites and interviewed hundreds of our people,
from the shop floor to the board room. This unprecedented
level of access allowed them to thoroughly review safety practices
across the Group, providing us with a clear set of recommendations
which we are committed to implement.
“Although the dss+ audit confirmed that we have the right
policies and standards, the biggest challenge is to truly embed
“one safety culture” across the Group. The dss+ analysis makes
clear that while there are areas of good practice and world-class
performance, this is not uniformly the case and there are business
units where improvement is required. The recommendations therefore
focus on lifting underperformers and consistently embedding best
practices across all business units, underpinned by strong
governance and assurance.
“This will not be an easy journey. We have been on this road
for some time already without achieving the results we want.
Different outcomes require a different approach. It will require
openness to doing things differently, at all levels of the
organisation. I am pleased the audit confirmed understanding and
support for this across all segments – we need everyone to be fully
committed.
“We are now defining the most effective ways to implement
these recommendations in an accelerated manner. The recommendations
sound simple but there is a lot of detail that sits underneath
including the site-specific workplans that are now being developed
and will be the workhorse of our efforts.
“We recognize the ongoing interest of stakeholders in our
progress and are committed to providing regular reports, explaining
our progress on our journey to zero fatalities, as well updates on
the implementation of the recommendations.”
Commenting, Davide Vassallo, CEO of dss+
said:
“ArcelorMittal has made considerable effort
to improve its safety standards and processes in recent years and
there is understandable concern that results still fall short.
Across a Group of such scale and breadth it is not surprising that
we encountered considerable variability in performance. But
in interactions with hundreds of people, we found all were
very genuine in their desire to keep people safe and open to
learning, improving and, where recommended, doing things
differently.
“A key finding was that while standards and
protocols across the Group were broadly in line with good practice,
behaviours can fall short of what the policies require. There are
undoubtedly good performers in the Group, who demonstrate all the
characteristics of those companies that can sustain excellent
safety results. The challenge is to raise all operations in the
Group to this standard – and this is what our recommendations are
fundamentally designed to address.
“This means enhancing risk evaluation,
building a “Plan Do Check Act” continuous improvement mentality,
coaching and mentoring all shop floor workers to become safety
ambassadors, ensuring the same standards are in place for
contractors, upgrading Process Risk Management standards, taking
action in response to both excellent and poor safety performance,
and then ensuring rigorous three-line assurance.
“There is no silver bullet when it comes to
delivering sustained, excellent safety results, and each of the six
recommendations deserve and need equal focus. Together they build
on the good practices we identified to more deeply integrate, align
and connect all safety related activities, creating a solid
foundation on which all operational activity then sits.
“The commitment of leadership is vital – and
I am reassured through our interactions that it is there, at the
Group, segment and business unit level.
“At dss+ we passionately believe every
company has the potential to operate entirely
safely. ArcelorMittal, having commissioned this very detailed
audit, is taking the right steps to ensure it can move in this
direction.”
The audit
The audit was carried out over nine months and
comprised of:
- 155 site
audits (including JVs) on the three main occupational
risks;
- Process safety management
audits on the 14 highest risk assets;
- Thorough examination of
H&S management practices across the Group, including
o Key H&S documents and
data review;
o 280+
interviews of ArcelorMittal employees, including board
members, senior leadership, middle management, H&S personnel
and union members;
o 60+ management and
H&S meetings attended; and
o 80+ focus
groups with shopfloor employees (union and non-union),
supervisors, and middle management.
Observations from the audit
The recommendations build on the current
workplace safety context across ArcelorMittal, which dss+
identified as follows:
- Recent global workplace safety
improvement efforts have focused on the pillars of “Risk
Management” (including differentiation between occupational risks
and process safety risks) and “Safety Culture”.
- While ArcelorMittal has good
occupational health and safety standards (including its fatality
prevention standards), supported by the life-saving golden rules,
the implementation of the standards varies across the Group.
- Similarly, the implementation of
process safety management (PSM), which at ArcelorMittal relies on a
set of established technical standards developed by both
ArcelorMittal and vendors, varies across the Group.
- Leadership knows that the current
performance is not satisfactory and is committed to intensifying
the organization’s commitment to the Journey to Zero, which is the
aim of achieving zero fatalities and serious injuries.
- The Company recognizes the
importance of establishing “one safety culture” and is alert to the
fact this will be a long-term effort due to the diversity and
complexity of the Group.
- There is a particular challenge
with contractors. The number of contractors working across
ArcelorMittal’s projects and operations varies every day depending
on activity but will always be at least 20,000 and can be as high
as 50,000.
Overall, while there are areas of excellence in
the Group, variability in performance exists which must be
addressed by initiatives that fast-track the strengthening of “one
safety culture,” underpinned by enhanced governance and assurance
across all operations.
Recommendations
dss+ has presented its recommendations to the
Company’s Board of Directors, the Executive Office and the Group
Management Committee.
The recommendations are classified into six main
areas:
1: Improving the identification and
understanding of operational risk exposure
dss+ recommends strengthening the identification
and understanding of operational risk exposure, through several
measures:
1. Enhancing the governance framework to better
identify and understand operational risk exposure; and
2. Building on the existing fatality prevention
standards to upgrade the “Plan Do Check Act” (PDCA) cycle,
supported by additional governance practices (e.g. additional
leading indicators and enhanced risk-management routines).
2: Strengthening the existing health
& safety assurance model
dss+ recommends strengthening the existing
health & safety assurance model with three lines of assurance
across all business units to provide more comprehensive oversight,
thereby better identifying and addressing implementation
challenges. This will help mitigate serious accidents. The
additional improved lines of assurance will provide more
consistency and will support ArcelorMittal’s desire to strengthen
its “one safety culture.”
dss+ recommends operationalising the assurance
model through regular assurance reviews across the three-line model
that are prioritised based on the level of operational risk.
3: Continuing to embed safety values,
mindsets and behaviours to strengthen the “one safety
culture”
The reach and diversity of ArcelorMittal’s footprint introduces
complexity in driving a common safety culture across the Group.
dss+ recommends on-the-ground coaching and mentorship programs to
be designed and introduced for all leaders (involving more than
10,000 people) to reinforce the existing safety training programs,
e.g. “Take Care”. This will provide a strong foundation for “one
safety culture” across all levels.
4: Improving contractor safety
management standards
dss+ recommends standardizing and improving each
contractor safety management element (e.g. contractor selection,
evaluation, onboarding, execution and post-performance review)
across all contractor cohorts (embedded and projects contractors)
to help ensure full adoption of ArcelorMittal’s existing and
planned best practices. This will help bring any lagging contractor
safety performance up to ArcelorMittal’s standard requirements.
5: Adopting industry best practices for
Process Safety Management (PSM)
dss+ recommends developing and implementing a
common PSM framework and accompanying standards that further
incorporates best practices in all relevant PSM elements (e.g.
avoidance of all unwanted process safety events through hazard
identification, analysis, control, and better asset integrity).
Ensuring alignment with relevant management systems (e.g.
operations and maintenance) will be essential to improve controls
effectiveness and mitigate process safety-related risk.
Additionally, dss+ recommends launching pilot
sites to implement prioritised PSM elements in waves to achieve
faster impact while the full framework elements are being rolled
out.
6: Integrating health & safety
elements into supporting business processes
dss+ recommends further integrating supporting
business processes into H&S to support an improved “one safety
culture” across the Group. Four specific processes require
additional focus:
1. Further integrate
safety elements into all parts of the employee life cycle
encompassing selection, onboarding, development and promotion;
2. Consistently
reward and recognize good performance and achievements, and
increase consequences for not following processes and rules, e.g.
consequence management;
3. Further enhance
the identification of critical safety investments to support risk
reduction efforts; and
4. Strengthen safety
management practices throughout capital projects life cycle, from
design, engineering, procurement, and contracting, to construction
and start-up, including governance and assurance framework.
Implementing the
recommendations:
The Company has begun actioning dss+’s
recommendations, including:
- Implementing the interim
recommendations given to sites during the Fatality Prevention
Standard (FPS) audits (more than 90% completed to date);
- Ensuring business units’
development of customized, business unit-specific workplans, to
incorporate into their five-year planning cycle;
- Identifying the priority sites that
will be the first to implement the new Process Safety Management
framework in connection with the business unit-specific workplans
each business unit develops;
- Taking steps to apply process
safety management elements to all new projects; and
- Improving select ArcelorMittal
fatality prevention standards based on dss+’s recommendations.
The Company will keep stakeholders updated on
progress.
ENDS
About
ArcelorMittal
ArcelorMittal is one of the world’s leading integrated steel
and mining companies with a presence in 60 countries and primary
steelmaking operations in 15 countries. It is the largest steel
producer in Europe, among the largest in the Americas, and has a
growing presence in Asia, including India, through its joint
venture AM/NS India.
ArcelorMittal sells its products to a diverse range of
customers including the automotive, engineering, construction and
machinery industries, and in 2023 generated revenues of $68.3
billion, produced 58.1 million metric tonnes of crude steel and
42.0 million tonnes of iron ore.
Our purpose is to produce smarter steels for people and
planet. Steels made using innovative processes which use less
energy, emit significantly less carbon and reduce costs. Steels
that are cleaner, stronger and reusable. Steels for the renewable
energy infrastructure that will support societies as they transform
through this century. With steel at our core, our inventive people
and an entrepreneurial culture at heart, we will support the world
in making that change.
ArcelorMittal is listed on the stock exchanges of New York
(MT), Amsterdam (MT), Paris (MT), Luxembourg (MT) and on the
Spanish stock exchanges of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia
(MTS). For more information about ArcelorMittal please visit:
http://corporate.arcelormittal.com.
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1 Process safety is management of risks that involve
the safe operations of a process that is specific to the operating
unit or the equipment itself (e.g. blast furnace, coke plant,
etc)
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