Health and safety

All ASSA ABLOY entities have rigorous programs for health and safety. The hazards are strictly controlled in all settings and this is also in most countries where ASSA ABLOY operates a legal requirement. Objectives have been set in order to allow for a continuous improvement of practices, systems and results. These objectives are based on a zero-vision.

All entities are benchmarked against each other. Special focus will be given to the ‘not-satisfactory performers’, entities that have above-average injury¹ and injury lost day rates². A general program has been defined for all ASSA ABLOY entities. Each entity should make sure that an appropriate organization is in place. Such an organization includes a health and safety committee with union representation wherever possible. Top management has an overall responsibility and delegates tasks and authorization. The task is to create a culture where everybody feels responsible for health and safety issues. Health and safety audits are included in the internal audit and risk assessment should be a normal routine as is incident reporting and analysis in order to introduce preventive measures.

Injury rates
Objective
2007: injury rate 10
2008: injury rate 9

Injury lost day rates
ASSA ABLOY has measured the injury lost day rates since 2005. Already from 2005 to 2006 results improved, but in the new objectives targets are set at even lower levels.

Objectives
2007: injury lost day rate 220
2008: injury lost day rate 200

Both objectives for injury rate and for injury lost day rate were met in 2007. The injury lost day rate is even better than the target for 2008. Results have been compared with statistics available at the US Department for Labor – Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In 2006 the comparable injury and illness rate for fabricated metal manufacturing was 1.8 cases with days away from work per 100 employees, i.e. 9 injuries per million hours worked. This puts ASSA ABLOY on the average level. There were no fatalities at ASSA ABLOY in 2007.

Both injury rate and injury lost day rate, a measure of the severity of injuries, can be improved further. The results so far show that the Group-wide program has had a good response from local companies and the focus on health and safety has also increased sharing of information and best-practice examples between units. Internal audits and training sessions for internal audits have given a lot of attention to job specific risk assessments, i.e. for each and every machine or manufacturing process. This has resulted in raised awareness and usage of personal protective equip-ment, and also in improvements regarding injury rates. However, when comparing ourselves with the best compa¬nies in similar industries we acknowledge that there is still room for improvement. We are aware that in regard to injury rates, very low rates might be possible, perhaps even down to 2–3 injuries per million hours worked.

Targets 2008
Due to the very satisfactory overall results, a new target has been set as 170 for injury lost day rate. The objective for injury rate is kept at 9.
All entities with an injury rate above 15 and an injury lost day rate above 200 should perform or update their existing risk assessments for each blue-collar job function until the end of 2008 and implement all measures until Mid 2009. Furthermore we intend to intensify best-practice sharing.

1. IR in injuries per million hours worked
2. ILDR in lost days per million hours worked