Air Products South Africa aims high

Throughout the years, Air Products South Africa has developed a formal occupational health and safety programme, which has proven highly effective and gained industry-wide recognition.

The programme involves strictly adhering to legislation and building a culture of proactive safety awareness – resulting in a low disabling injury frequency rate (DIFR) at several of its production sites.

“At Air Products South Africa, occupational health and safety means ensuring that we provide our employees with a harm-free workplace,” says Sue Janse van Vuuren, corporate risk manager at the company.

The gas industry can be a hazardous working environment, due to the nature of its processes and products, thus, the company’s risk-based health and safety management system is highly comprehensive, and takes both local and global elements into account.

“In South Africa, our health and safety management system is designed to ensure compliance to the global Air Products systems, as well as local legislation. We also use the NOSA Integrated 5 Star System (Health, Safety and Environmental Management) as our benchmark,” explains Janse van Vuuren.

The company has received repeated accolades at the annual Noshcon conference and awards _ with six of its sites winning the highest honour; a ‘Noscar’. The Noscar criteria include exceptional performance in managing occupational health and safety for three consecutive years.

Air Products won its first Noscar in 2003, and is a proud recipient of approximately 47 Noscars to date. This year, site winners of Noscar awards included Air Products Cape Town, Witbank and Springs.

“The NOSA system is regarded as a valuable benchmarking tool within the industry. It enables us to measure how well we’re providing safe workplaces in comparison to other companies,” notes Janse van Vuuren, reiterating the company’s commitment to the safety of its staff.