Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works’ (MMK) representatives took part in the Second Congress of the Russian Steel Association on labor protection, industrial and environment safety held in Stary Oskol. MMK invests around 2.5 billion rubles in occupational safety every year.
The event was held on September 10-11 on the site of the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant (belonging to Metalloinvest group). It brought together representatives from leading metallurgical companies and other sectors of the economy, such as scientific, educational and governmental bodies and other expert institutions.
Director for Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Protection Grigory Shchurov and Head of the Department for Labor Protection and Industrial Safety Alexei Beltyukov represented MMK at the forum. MMK has been successfully implementing a comprehensive program to improve safety at work for a number of years, which has led to a significant reduction in injuries.
“Comparing statistics for injuries in 2019 to those of 2016, the numbers demonstrate the success of the measures taken to improve safety systems at MMK”, Alexey Beltyukov said during the forum. “The analytical indicator LTIFR (Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate), which is accepted internationally, has reduced by 15% for the specified period. The LTISR (Lost Time Injury Severity Rate) has reduced by 44%.”
The company implements extensive state-of-the-art automation and digitalization tools in the field of labor protection and industrial safety. The digital module for incident management is amongst the company’s most innovative solutions. It collects and organizes data on all incidents over a ten-year period. The program’s algorithm is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and it has no equivalent within the Russian metal industry.
Since 2018 MMK has been running a unique “School of Safety” training course across the country. The school presents an opportunity to develop skills in a practical environment related to carrying out work safely and efficiently in a variety of conditions (for example, at height). Last year the school trained over 4,000 workers.
The company’s strategic goal in the field of industrial safety and labor protection is to eradicate fatal accidents completely and to become an international leader among metallurgical companies in labor protection and industrial safety as measured by Key Performance Indicators. In 2017 MMK’s actual expenditure on occupational health and safety amounted to 2.2 billion rubles; the year before it reached around 2.5 billion rubles. (MMK/Ukrainian metal)