Today, every manufacturing business needs to incorporate safe work practices in its operations. It is all the more critical if the business is into handling of chemicals, some of which could be hazardous and toxic in nature. That's the reason why the Aditya Birla Chemicals Business has rightly adopted safety as a key performance parameter to drive its business sustainably with operational excellence. In fact, this Business has incorporated safety in its organisational DNA across all the 14 manufacturing facilities located in four countries.

To adopt the global best practices and to meet norms specific to chemicals hazard, the Aditya Birla Chemicals Business collaborated with DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS) - the knowledge consulting arm of DuPont. It initiated the journey about three years ago with Work Place Safety (WPS), wherein the at-risk behaviours are addressed to improve the work practices to establish better operational discipline.

The Business also extended its engagement to include Process Safety Management (PSM). With PSM, the manufacturing processes are routed through a 13-element wheel to address their risks both qualitatively and quantitatively as well as through driving control mechanisms to mitigate safety issues.

The WPS engagement at units identified focus areas. This included framing of the 10-high risk standards and rolling them out for gap identification and support for strengthening the infrastructures to meet the standard requirements. The 10-high risk standards encompass personal protection, work@height, materials handling, job safety analysis, permit to work, lock out tag out, hot work, scaffoldings, incident investigation and excavation. The Business also developed training capability based on standards for employees as well as for all other stakeholders.

To drive WPS, Aditya Birla Chemicals Business formed six different sub-committees to cover Safety Rules & Procedures, Safety Observation & Audit, Incident Investigation, Capability Development & Communication, Safety in Transport & Distribution, and Contractor Safety Management. Herein, each unit is led by a senior management team.

Similarly for PSM, the Business has one sub-committee per unit which works closely for developing the process safety practices like technology, process hazard analysis, pre-start up safety review, emergency response, management of change and so on.

Some of the key facts

• Improvements in safety observation by all sections and reporting to tab the non-compliances.
• Reduction in the number of first aid cases at Indian Rayon plant at Veraval, Gujarat.
• Conducting process hazard analysis (PHA) for key processes to adopt engineering controls so that any eventuality due to technical flaws gets minimised.
• Improvement in material handlings, energy isolation system.
• 100% enforcement of permit to work system across all areas.
• Reporting and investigation of incidents to correct the system.