Health & Safety: Local Safety Challenges Demand Tailored Communication Skills
Over the years, ANDRITZ Chile has provided equipment maintenance, repair, and installation services to customers in the pulp and paper industry through its pulp service division. In the course of our work, we have learned that each safety situation and location demand a unique approach when it comes to the most effective channels of communication.
In August last year, maintenance was performed in the fiber area at CMPC’s Santa Fe Mill in Chile. The project involved 81 skilled personnel from ANDRITZ Chile along with around 4,000 workers from other contractors for a period of 15 days.
During this activity, ANDRITZ was tasked to perform maintenance and service on a total of 10 different pieces of equipment, one of the most important of which was the DD-Washer. One of the most critical and relevant activities was the inspection and repair of the PRE-2 filter, as this required a 30-ton piece of equipment that needed to be lifted. To carry out this activity, we had to coordinate constantly with the customer in order to permit our specialized personnel to execute the lifting plan.
Understanding the importance of these activities to be executed, and taking preventive action before and during the task, were key to obtaining good results in terms of safety. The control and monitoring of all preventive aspects took place by using the Quentic Safety Observation system, which allowed the development of tasks avoiding the occurrence of incidents onsite and giving full compliance with the customer’s requirements.
The Quentic Safety Observation system is an essential ingredient in the management of safety; however, the optimization of a safe work environment is also about psychology, and how best to communicate the importance of safety in the most successful way. In order to increase our preventive culture at the mill, we brought together all our collaborators involved with the project to reinforce day-to-day safety practices by means of different informative and educational exercises. These exercises involved games and activities that were designed to highlight the importance of all safety measures, and why they were taken, which included: a safety golden rules puzzle, safety fishing, hazard bowling, and even a dance exercise.
THE MAGIC OF SAFETY
One of the safety dynamics that had the greatest impact on people working in and around the site was an activity called “The Magic of Safety”, the purpose of which was to give workers a moment of thoughtfulness and generate a special magic atmosphere, as well as to give them a powerful family message that would remain with them for a long time.
This act consisted of asking four workers to write on a piece of paper the name of the most important person in their lives and then put it in a bag. Then a worker was asked to take one of the papers and read the answer with the name written on it, while a masked figure approached. Once he mentioned the name that appeared on the paper, the magician asked the masked person to come closer and discover her face to reveal her secret identity, which turned out to be his wife.
When everyone saw what happened, an emotional atmosphere was generated within the work team, who applauded and congratulated the magician for his act. To conclude this activity, the wife of our worker spoke to all our gathered workers and reinforced their safety commitment.
The achievement of these successful safety results motivate our HSEQ team to continue working and generating new strategies with the main objective to protect and care for our greatest treasure, our people.
