Safety Performance - BlueScope Steel HSEC Report 2004

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Safety Performance

Our goal of Zero Harm remains firm. As shown by the charts below, we have continued to make strong overall progress, with many businesses reporting noteworthy results.

In the 2003/04 financial year, we achieved further reductions in our two key safety indicators: Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) and Medical Treatment Injury Frequency Rate (MTIFR). LTIFR was reduced by 26 per cent, and MTIFR was reduced by 36 per cent compared to 2002/03.

Tragically, otherwise improved safety performance was overshadowed by a fatality.

A Lost Time Injury (LTI) occurs when an employee is absent from work due to injury for at least one full shift. LTIFR is the number of lost time injuries per million hours worked (formerly known as man-hours).

Many companies use LTIFR to measure their safety performance and compare their performance with that of other companies and industries. Using a rate of injury, rather than the number of injuries, allows comparison between companies of different sizes.

In 2003/04, we improved our record low injury performance, achieving an LTIFR of 1.3, which was 26 per cent lower than the previous year. The total number of LTIs for the year was 45 across our global employee base of more than 16,000 people (12,000 prior to the Butler Manufacturing acquisition).

MTIFR is the number of injuries that require medical treatment, per million hours worked.

We achieved 36 per cent fewer Medical Treatment Injuries (MTIs) in 2003/04, with an MTIFR of 6.7.

BlueScope Steel's substantial safety performance improvement, shown by a reduction in LTIFR from around 30 a decade ago to 2003/04 level of 1.3, has been partly the result of our self-auditing process, which involves employees in hazard identification and risk management processes.

In 2003/04, 93 per cent of our people were involved in conducting monthly safety audits, against a target of 90 per cent. Many teams have every person involved in conducting audits on a monthly basis.

Another proactive strategy is near miss reporting. Our people have been involved in reporting more near misses than ever before - our near miss to injury ratio is 8 to 1. In the past year, more than 17,000 near misses were reported and followed up.

Note: Although Butler Manufacturing was part of BlueScope Steel for two months of the 2003/2004 year, its safety performance is not included in these figures, but will be included from FY05.