Ensuring global health and safety standards in manufacturing
Published: 24 October, 2024
Ensuring health and safety in the workplace is critical for operational excellence and employee wellbeing. PWE explores how Air Products, a global gases manufacturer, is striving to achieve zero accidents worldwide by implementing a standardised Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) management system across its diverse international operations.
Prioritising health and safety isn’t just a regulatory obligation – it’s a cornerstone of operational excellence and employee wellbeing. Beyond protecting workers from harm, a strong safety culture boosts morale and productivity. It enhances a business’ reputation, attracts top talent and contributes towards strong customer relationships. In essence, its smart business, paving the way for a resilient and thriving sector but operationally it can be complex. If a business is spread across the globe in vastly diverse geographies like Air Products, the scale quickly multiplies.
Air Products is a global gases manufacturer, employing more than 20,000 people across various geographies. One of its strategic corporate priorities is to become the world’s safest industrial gas supplier, aiming for zero accidents worldwide. A simple enough goal, but one that needs immense dedication in tackling health and safety practices, cultures and regulations across its operations regardless of where they are located. To ensure safety standards across countries are aligned, the business implements its own global environment health and safety management system.
One system for everywhere
Air Products has been operating for over 80 years and in the early 1980s its incident rate was on par with other industry leaders, and high by today's standards. In the 1990s and 2000s, the business began introducing various standards and health and safety management systems focusing on the three Es – evaluation, education and enforcement, which significantly reduced the incident rate. The lost time injury (LTI) figure for fiscal 2023 was 0.9 – an impressive 63% reduction from 2014, and 0.29 for recordable accidents, a 50% improvement in the same 10-year period.
Initially each of its business units – electronics or chemical gases for example – had its own systems, each at different levels of maturity. The need to remove complexity and focus on the end goal of a safer workplace was the trigger to standardise and globalise these systems. Almost immediately the health and safety team saw significant improvements. “We saw a step change as we rolled out the global EHS management system but it didn’t come without challenges”, said Mark Garrett, the EHS and Quality Director for Europe and Africa at Air Products. He added: “While Europe and North America were relatively mature, regions such as Asia and Africa were a series of phases behind where we were as a company. A global EHS system to bring all areas to the same level was vital.”
The case study
In May 2023, Air Products invested $1bn in a gas-to-liquid processing facility known as UzGTL, in the Qashqadaryo Province in Uzbekistan, owned by the Uzbek state gas company Uzbekneftegaz. Within the UzGTL complex, Air Products acquired and now owns and operates the two largest air separation units in its own portfolio, the two world’s largest auto-thermal reforming units, and a hydrogen production unit supplying oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and syngas to the gas-to-liquid transformation process. As the end product, the UzGTL facility produces more than 1.5 million tons of high-value-added synthetic fuel per year.
Along with these assets came more than 150 local employees, who had joined as young engineers and matured with the company as it moved from concept all the way to commissioning.
While they are experts in processes, Garrett’s team found that some approaches to health and safety measures, along with the evaluation of these systems, had room for improvement. Garrett explained: We often find in acquisitions that the safety practices and systems of the incumbents differ from Air Products’. This allows us to offer not only investment opportunities but also bring our expertise and knowledge to help the teams advance their operational and safety discipline.”
These employees have twin challenges to accomplish, and quickly, with support from Garrett’s team. First, get to grips with the safety culture that Air Products embeds at all its plants, that includes everyone from supervisors and managers to technicians and engineers in the field. Second, operating within Air Products’ safety framework, prepare for and assist the impending structural overhaul planned for later this year.
The approach
Air Products EHS system is based on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rulings from the US. Garrett is a veteran at setting it up at plants across the world, and navigating local culture and practices in the process is nothing new. Understanding the maturity of the region starts with an EHS audit in any new geography to see how things are being done. The corporate audit fits in with the EHS management system and, while there is a compliance element to that, it also looks at the cultural and personnel element. A lot of face-to-face conversation happens alongside the audit to understand the perception of these systems among the workers, their attitude towards safety and reporting and their understanding of why it’s important. Garrett highlighted: “One of our biggest challenges is that sometimes, culturally, it hasn’t been acceptable to make a mistake, or people only report accidents. We encourage people to report near misses, not just accidents, to progress towards zero accidents.”
He's also keen to emphasise that local teams, however ready they may be for international standards, need time to understand and adjust: “When you go into new regions with any new systems, you have to give them time. You cannot just say, ‘This is the way things have to be done.’ You have to bring the people along with you.”
Perhaps the most important learning for him has been that for a safety system to be effective, it has to be both top down and bottom up.
The leadership must be seen to be prioritising health and safety and this message has to filter down to all rungs of the company – that safety is a strategic pillar of the company and that if employees flag a risk or an issue, it’s dealt with immediately and effectively.
Keeping teams motivated
While the Qashqadaryo Province plant readies itself for transformation of its structures, process and safety culture, Garrett reiterates the importance of aiming to remove the margin for accidents. He cites a different geography where recordable injuries dropped from six in the first six months post-acquisition by Air Products to zero LTIs and only one minor incident requiring first-aid in the whole year within two years.
He concluded: “Data like this – where teams can see the difference that a change in approach has made – is gold dust for my work. These tangible results that we can bring to bear with our EHS system provide the motivation and keep the teams engaged.#
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