Safety Training and Emergency Response Preparednessold

Following the upgrade of critical safety systems, Qatar Steel led training and coaching sessions on the introduced systems to the relevant stakeholders at Qatar Steel. Qatar Steel successfully conducted the following:

• Engaged a third-party training agency that trained over 1,500 resources on the new permit to work system and initiated a training program for 1,000 resources on the new isolation and Lock-Out & Tag-Out system.
• Trained key resources on the new incident investigation process and coached a pool of senior resources from all departments through real incident investigations which developed incident investigation champions to lead the efforts moving forward.
• Trained relevant employees on the new risk assessment system and conducted coaching sessions with each production department to guide them through live examples of Hazard Identification & Risk Assessment (HIRA), Job Safety Analysis (JSA), and Man-Machine Interface (MMI) to ensure we achieve the required quality to effectively mitigate the risks in the field.
• Currently engaged in training and coaching across the organization on how to utilize the rest of the revamped systems. These capacity building exercises are essential to ensuring everyone is aware of the safety criteria and practices that support the sustainability of Qatar Steel. These include confined space entry, working at height, audits and the safety governance systems.

Qatar Steel engaged in an intensive communication campaign where banners, outdoor stands and handouts were distributed strategically across Qatar Steel’s facilities and in 4 different languages to raise the awareness around the Life-Saving-Rules. All resources have been trained by their department management on the importance of these rules to save their lives as well as the lives of their peers.

Qatar Steel also took a strategic decision to enhance the size and the capabilities of its safety team within the HSE department by redesigning its organization’s structure and attracting talent globally. These new positions include a mixture of engineers, subject matter experts and front-line inspectors. This enhancement will support the organization in reaching and exceeding its cultural safety transformation objective.

Finally, Qatar Steel has revamped its safety rewards and recognition process, aimed at promoting the desired safety culture and mindset in the organization, and linked it to its HSE objectives. The upgraded reward system and process has a clear set of guidelines and principles, a clear evaluation criteria, and covers all levels of the organization, including contractors. It is designed to provide the right level of motivation to the safety staff and recognize them for outstanding safe behavior.

These combined efforts have led to a reduction in Qatar Steel’s lost time injury frequency rates (LTIFR) by over 70% since the program started, which is below the World Steel Association level.