SafetyCulture

ArcelorMittal Construction

Find out how ArcelorMittal Construction, a subsidiary of ArcelorMittal, world leader in steel and mining, uses SafetyCulture to improve employee safety at 43 production sites in Europe.

4,848 Audits each year for safety

5,000 hours saved using Audits for safety

50% time reduction on a Safety Walk audit

We use SafetyCulture for

ArcelorMittal Construction is part of ArcelorMittal Group, world leader in steelmaking and mining. Established in 15 countries, the company is the leader in steel-building envelope products. Its range of innovative solutions aims to create smarter, more sustainable and aesthetically pleasing buildings with outstanding performance. Robin Castin, Head of Health & Safety, implements the ArcelorMittal Group’s safety policy with the teams at his entity’s plants. Find out in this interview how SafetyCulture is helping to achieve ambitious safety targets, and the reasons behind the choice of this inspection solution.

An ever-increasing safety culture at ArcelorMittal

Every employee makes a commitment at the beginning of the year to look after the safety of one of his or her colleagues. At ArcelorMittal, the safety policy is deployed on several axes, and the field is the first of them.

“At ArcelorMittal, safety is more than a priority, it’s a real commitment from the company to its employees.”

Robin Castin
Head of Health and Safety at ArcelorMittal Construction

A field-oriented policy

Managers must be present in the field as much as possible to ensure that procedures are being properly followed, and to discuss with their employees to identify potential risks and areas for improvement. To facilitate controls and manage them as rigorously as possible, management has set up a whole series of workshop audits:

  • Safety meeting (Shopfloor audit – SFA)
  • Safety audit (SafetyWalk SW)
  • Knowledge assessment (Layered Evaluation)
  • Sanitation and cleanliness (5S)

Audits carried out by field supervisors follow strict protocols guided by inspection grids and supplemented by photos. They are compiled and analyzed by the safety coordinators. The purpose is not to control, but to identify and report dangerous situations. The standard at ArcelorMittal is to carry out at least one audit per day and per site.

A proactive policy

In addition to the field policy, the company has developed a proactive policy over the past three years. The challenge is to detect and deal with all safety incidents before they become accidents. By 2020, the aim was to report 3,500 Unsafe Situations (US)/Unsafe Acts (UA) and Serious Occurrences (S.O) on all ArcelorMital Construction sites. “Serious Occurrences” are dangerous situations or acts that could lead to a serious accident. They are treated as a priority.

Why did we choose the SafetyCulture inspection solution?

“We carry out almost 5,000 audits a year, and we also expect to report 8,000 hazardous situations or actions by 2022. This represents a huge workload for our managers. We had to find a solution to make their job easier and save them time.”

Robin Castin
Head of Health and Safety at ArcelorMittal Construction

“We decided to switch from paper to a digital application and chose SafetyCulture for this reason,” continues the Head of Health and Safety. SafetyCulture was deployed back in 2017 in the Steel Service Center division, then within ArcelorMittal Construction by its CEO. Since then, the Group has decided to extend the use of the solution to seven other divisions.

“By the third quarter of 2022, SafetyCulture will be deployed in 260 plants and 50 countries,” adds Robin Castin. ArcelorMittal Construction tested several audit digitization solutions before opting for SafetyCulture. The solutions tested were too rigid. The company needed a flexible solution, adapted to the needs and production types of each site.

“SafetyCulture is a very powerful tool. The platform has an impressive library of templates, but you’re free to create new ones to meet specific needs. The settings provide a level of flexibility unmatched by any of the other applications we tested,” says Robin Castin.

SafetyCulture provides a wide range of features to make life easier

  • Complete your inspections automatically via voice recognition
  • Annotate photos to describe a situation and assign tasks
  • Authorize a list of users to create a template
  • Get statistics on the number of audits performed and analyze gaps from targets by site, by country
  • Benefit from a very fast online chat available 24/5 to talk to support.

More than 5,000 hours gained thanks to SafetyCulture in one year

SafetyCulture is currently being deployed at ArcelorMittal Construction plants with 228 seats for a total of 2,000 employees. “We have estimated the time saved by using SafetyCulture to be 5,000 hours per year for audits alone. On average, audit time is reduced by 50%, and even by 70% for a 5S audit. Reporting on a dangerous situation used to take us 10 minutes, compared with 1 minute today with SafetyCulture,” explains Robin Castin.

Very positive feedback from teams

“Feedback from the teams has been very positive, and SafetyCulture’s ease of use is a big part of that. Users quickly realized the added value of the platform. The application is incredibly easy to use, unlike paper-based systems,” says Robin Castin, Head of Health and Safety at ArcelorMittal Construction.

In the near future, the company plans to roll out training modules via the Training feature and is testing the Heads Up solution to produce tutorials.

“Our priority at ArcelorMittal Construction is to track down all incidents before they become accidents. SafetyCulture helps us face this challenge every day,” adds ArcelorMittal Construction’s Health & Safety Manager.

Want to know more about how SafetyCulture can help you improve employee safety and streamline your processes? Visit our page dedicated to SafetyCulture or contact us.

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