[Sponsored Report] Posco makes safety its top priority

Choi Jeong-woo, chairman of Korea’s largest steelmaker, Posco, has been focusing on strengthening safety.

“As a corporate citizen, Posco and its partners should collect thoughts together to make the entire ecosystem safe, and safety is the most prestigious and interchangeable value that lays the foundation of ‘With Posco,’” said Chairman Choi in October last year.

In 2018, Posco decided to invest a total of 1.1 trillion won ($949.5 million) on improving safety over a three-year period to strength safety management and professionalism, and to detect and eliminate potential risk at steel mills.

In order to enhance safety management and professionalism at the company level, Posco invited external specialists and set up a safety office at the corporate headquarters.

In December last year, the company established executive offices focused on safety at steel mills to strengthen the independence and accountability of the steelworks safety departments.

In addition, Posco has run courses to send students abroad for safety engineering training and to nurture field supervisors as experts in its safety department.

For field-oriented safety activities, the company has operated an audit cycle of field supervisors more than twice a day to activate one-on-one safety communication activities with employees. It expanded the number of industrial safety certifications for supervisors to secure on-site safety performance-based on strong leadership.

In order to eliminate potential risks, Posco installed cut-off valves and double check valves that prevent gas leakage. The steelmaker also installed protective covers and widened stairways to improve guardrails and footholds.

Moreover, all employees are encouraged to use belts with double safety rings and a fall prevention system for safety.

The company also has a regular safety committee that meets with partners to secure safety communication channels and to minimize risks that may arise in the field. Posco has strengthened information sharing to all suppliers to make them aware of risks in the steelworks. It also receives monthly reports of inconveniences from partner companies to improve the working environment.

Posco has made various efforts to efficiently produce and supply the highest quality products by minimizing defects in advance based on smart factories and to actively strive to create safe workplaces through smart safety activities.

Smart safety is minimizing human error and improving on-site risk factors by incorporating Internet of Things (IoT) technology into safety activities. By maximizing various sensors and communication functions, it can minimize the risks of workers.

The sensor installed in the workplace monitors the site environment, such as noise and temperature, and informs workers in real time. It detects the insecure behavior of the worker in real time and provides information in response to dangerous situations, carrying out scientific and effective safety activities. In order to prevent human errors, Posco has applied smart safety systems to monitoring systems for byproduct gas and gas leakage, helmets, fire monitoring robots and VR training, and intelligent CCTV installed with high-risk alarms.

Meanwhile, Posco annually offers awards for directors, suppliers and affiliates to share their outstanding activities and support up to 20 million won in prizes for each organization to encourage the voluntary participation of all employees. The company is also taking a lead in enhancing management safety capabilities through lectures on major safety issues.