Safety
The health and safety of Suominen’s employees is our key priority. We focus on accident prevention and building a strong safety culture. Safety is one of our key people-related targets, and our aim is to have zero lost time accidents.
In 2023, six lost time accidents (LTA) occurred at Suominen sites (two in 2022), and three out of our seven sites were able to reach the zero LTA target in 2023. The accident frequency rate (AFR) was 4.50 (1.53), and the accident severity rate was 0.28 (0.06). There were zero (zero in 2022) work-related fatal accidents among neither employees nor contractors at our sites. Safety monitoring is part of our daily activities, and we keep record of all work-related accidents and near misses and identify their causes.
The safety management systems are certified according to the ISO 45001 standard in all of our seven sites*.
Our safety work
Suominen’s safety work is based on preventive actions. We develop safety at the workplace according to the principle of continuous improvement and implementation of best practices. In improving safety, Suominen places particular emphasis on influencing attitudes, behavior, and operating models.
All Suominen employees take part in safety training during their onboarding period and, in addition, employees in production roles receive regular safety training.
Suominen has implemented a Behavior Based Safety program that kept rolling for the tenth year in a row in 2023. The program emphasizes the individual’s own responsibility in safety and focuses on influencing the attitude and motivation of individuals. The program includes mandatory safety walks on a weekly basis. During the safety walks, employees walk through the premises, identifying both safe and unsafe behaviors and conditions, and then engage in an open discussion with other employees. The findings are evaluated and subsequently, corrective actions are defined and scheduled, taking into account both urgency and a risk assessment. Regular monitoring of the progress of the assigned actions is conducted to ensure effective implementation. Over 21,600 safety walks were performed globally in 2023.
Suominen has also implemented Life Saving Rules that consist of six basic norms that no one can break under any circumstances. The rules are available in all Suominen languages.
Safety is a regular topic in our internal communications and on local communication channels, such as discussion boards and info screens, as well as in internal meetings. In 2023, we initiated a safety campaign to remind employees about the importance of safety every day and encourage each employee to stop and think before acting.
* The production area of Windsor Locks’ site is certified according to ISO 45001 by Ahlstrom.