Nurturing a safety culture

Keppel Group believes that good safety management contributes to operational excellence. The Group has embarked on a journey to build a safety culture at our workplaces by inculcating a mindset among our employees of putting safety first. In line with this objective, Keppel Corporation formed the Board Safety Committee on 17 January 2006 to enhance the Group’s commitment to “Safety First”. Chaired by Mr Yeo Wee Kiong, Independent Director of the Keppel Corporation Board, the four-member committee of which the Executive Chairman of Keppel Corporation Lim Chee Onn is also a member, aims to assist in fostering and sustaining a first-world safety culture in the Keppel Group. Keppel Land has since established a Board Safety Committee comprising four directors on 1 March 2007, further emphasising the company’s commitment to workplace safety.

“We shall be relentless in promoting the culture of safety.
We will do whatever it takes to implement safety regulations.”
Lim Chee Onn
Executive Chairman

Board Safety Committee
The Keppel Corporation Board Safety Committee augments the Keppel Group companies’ safety initiatives by reviewing management’s proposals in relation to their safety management systems and assisting in the drive towards fostering a safety culture within the Group.

In emphasising the importance of safety, Keppel has adopted the practice of placing safety as the first item on the agenda for board meetings for all companies under the Group.

With the Board Safety Committee facilitating a common discussion platform for safety-related matters for all the companies, it draws our business units together for active knowledge sharing and cross-fertilisation of ideas that will enable the Group to build a strong safety culture.

Last year, the Board Safety Committee initiated a workshop, ‘Creating a safety culture’, for the Board of Directors, senior management and safety managers across Keppel Group. The seminar was conducted by external consultant, DuPont, which is reputed for its safety culture
and rigorous training.

Safety practices and initiatives
Offshore & Marine
As a global leader in the offshore and marine industry, Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M) is applying the same Can Do! spirit to ignite passion for excellence in its Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management

The group also formulated a new occupational safety and health framework in 2006 that provided continuous improvement of its safety systems to imbue safety consciousness in each individual employee and subcontract worker.

The Offshore & Marine group also took the lead in 2006 by putting in place its in-house job hazard analysis system to help workers mitigate risk and hazards.

This was done well ahead of the Workplace Safety and Health (Risk Management) legislation implemented by the Ministry of Manpower on 1 September 2006.

In line with these moves, communicating the safety message to staff formed the main part of Keppel O&M’s major HSE initiatives in 2006. In-house training courses on Risk Assessment were conducted for its managers and supervisors. In addition, Keppel Shipyard also initiated a Safety Leadership Programme emphasising pro-active actions such as hazard identification and observation and intervention of unsafe acts. The programme further reinforced the importance of safety from the perspective of its managers and supervisors as leaders coaching their respective teams on safety leadership.

During the year, Keppel FELS held its annual safety campaign in July with Risk Assessment as the main theme. Keppel Shipyard and Keppel Singmarine also held safety campaigns in December 2006 focusing on the prevention of hand and finger injuries.

We conducted a group-wide safety seminar during the year.

Investors are briefed on the safety processes at our yards.

Keppel FELS’ focus on health and safety management has been endorsed, with the yard having attained the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001 or the OHSAS 18001. This is an internationally recognised occupational health and safety management system, to control related risks and improve performance.

Property
Keppel Land believes that good safety management equates to good business sense and hence has embarked on a journey to foster safety as a culture, which will characterise the way the company conducts business.

As part of this effort, it formed a Workplace Safety and Health Committee (WSHC) to spearhead initiatives on safety and to create a safety culture in the company.

Another objective of the WSHC is to formulate policies and guidelines to assist business units to exercise due diligence and carry out its duties of care, including taking all reasonably practicable measures to ensure that the workplace is safe to employees and co-workers.

One of the key initiatives Keppel Land implemented in 2006 was the formulation of safety standards. With the assistance of an appointed Occupational Safety and Health consultant, Lockton Companies (Singapore) Pte Ltd, the WSHC finalised and implemented Keppel Land’s own safety standards to measure and assess contractors’ safety performance. These safety standards also serve as a measurement tool in the evaluation of tenders during selection exercises prior to the award of contracts.

The appointed occupational safety and health consultant assessed the safety management systems of several local contractors involved in Keppel Land’s development projects. Where there are disparities between the contractors’ safety standards and that of Keppel Land’s, discussions are held to close this gap. This assessment of safety management systems is being progressively introduced to all projects in Singapore and overseas.

Another initiative was the implementation of independent safety surveillance. Over and above safety checks carried out by contractors in Singapore, Keppel Land instituted additional third-party safety checks on construction sites to verify contractors’ compliance with relevant regulatory requirements and safe work practices. These checks were carried out monthly and any shortcoming would be highlighted to the contractors. Records were also kept for subsequent reviews. In addition, every construction work site in Singapore and overseas was required to collate and submit reports and statistics to the WSHC on accident frequency and severity rates at construction sites. In an unfortunate event of any accident, the incident would be investigated and any lesson learned would be shared with relevant business units to prevent recurrence.

Delivering quality homes demands a keen focus on work processes.

Other safety moves undertaken by Keppel Land’s WSHC included visiting sites to propagate the message of safety and inviting contractors to share their experiences at regular sessions. While risk and safety issues faced by completed commercial buildings differ from construction sites, elimination and mitigation of safety and health risk is of utmost importance. As such, the property management teams in each building had implemented a comprehensive risk management process to address risk at source. This entailed a risk assessment of any work activity, control and monitoring of such risk and communicating these risks to persons involved.

Infrastructure
Keppel Integrated Engineering (KIE) initiated a number of measures in 2006 to further enhance and improve its environmental, health and safety standard. This included integrating and consolidating all of its environmental, health and safety standard reports by its local and overseas business units at its headquarters every month. The complete safety report and statistics for KIE were in turn disseminated to all of its subsidiaries. This enabled KIE and all its business units to monitor and analyse their safety performance against Singapore’s industrial safety standards.

In conjunction with this, budgets were allocated to provide safety training and promotion as well as safety information updates to all local business units.

KIE responded positively to the Ministry of Manpower’s Workplace Safety and Health Act. It also worked with the Ministry to create a stronger safety culture and shape mindsets on safety. With its experience in various construction industries, KIE is able to conduct comprehensive Risk Assessments in method statement submission and implement control measures to eliminate or reduce risks.

Continuous and deliberate conduct of activities in promoting the importance of health and safety at work are encouraged at Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation’s wholly-owned Keppel Logistics unit.

The logistics unit has a risk management framework to address the inherent business risks, by putting in place various programmes and initiatives involving all levels of staff.

With the Workplace and Safety Health Act in place since 1 March 2006, Keppel Logistics has completed a programme of Risk Assessment and Evaluation at each shop floor level operation to identify and implement mitigating procedures to eliminate risk.

The company is consciously and conscientiously building a safety culture at its workplace, such that Occupational Health and Safety will be wholeheartedly embraced by every individual worker, co-worker and all stakeholders.

The company’s safety committee meets monthly to discuss, review and recommend safety-related issues and policies for implementation at the shop floor level. Apart from the annual fire emergency drill conducted, the unit holds ‘Safety Month’ campaigns annually to inculcate safety awareness. The Singapore Civil Defence Force is also invited to conduct promotions and programmes involving contractors and occupiers of its premises. Safety inspections are conducted regularly to ensure timely identification of unsafe work processes and potential risk exposure.

With their focus on safety consciousness and standards, both KIE and Keppel Logistics have been certified for their health and safety management standards. Keppel Seghers, Keppel FELS Cranes, Keppel FMO and Keppel Logistics have attained OHSAS 18001.

The ultimate objective for Keppel Group is for our workers to not only think about their own safety, but also that of co-workers. Through such constant preoccupation with thinking and acting safely, a behavioural safety culture will potentially be entrenched within the entire Group.

Towards a safety culture at Keppel O&M
“Safety First” is a key practice for Keppel O&M. The group strives for all its people to go home safe and sound every day. In its journey towards building a safety culture, Keppel O&M focused its strategic thrusts in four areas: management commitment, empowerment of employees, visibility and openness as well as incentives and penalties.

Visibility of leadership commitment is evident at Keppel O&M. The group’s safety steering committee is co-chaired by the Chairman/CEO and the Managing Director/COO. In addition, a group general manager for safety has recently been appointed to augment the efforts of the
executive directors at the business units’ level. The executive directors are both chairmen and champions of their yards’ safety steering committee. Supported by the yards’ safety departments, the executive directors are responsible for the yards’ safety.

Using an illustration of the journey to a safety culture (see Chart 1), it is notable that Keppel O&M is taking steps towards the interdependent behaviour stage, as there is an increasingly open channel of communication of safety issues and concerns being shared among co-workers, cascading from management to employees.

Our goal is for all ranks to internalise a safety culture.

A noteworthy milestone achieved by Keppel Shipyard’s employees last year was the formation of the Workforce Safety Council in November. The Council comprises entirely employees at the workers’ level. With its “For the Workers, By the Workers” motto, the Council’s objective is to create a safe and healthy workplace for every person in the yard through the provision of a communication platform for feedback, dissemination of management’s expectations and encouragement of positive work behaviour. Subcontractors of Keppel Shipyard followed subsequently the example of Keppel Shipyard with the launch of their own HSE watch groups. The watch groups augment Keppel Shipyard’s HSE efforts by providing a communication channel between Keppel and its more than 160 subcontracting companies. There will be one HSE watch group for each of Keppel Shipyard’s yards at Tuas, Gul and Benoi.

Openness towards near miss incident reporting and lessons learnt were encouraged, resulting in a great amount of sharing among all the Keppel O&M yards.

The HSE teams also work closely with their counterparts and customers who provide invaluable guidance and advice. In fact, some customers like SBM, the world’s largest owner and operator of FPSO/FSOs, and ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, have been members of Keppel Shipyard’s safety steering committee since mid-2002. They are deeply involved with Keppel Shipyard’s safety initiatives.

Based on the International Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, Keppel Shipyard’s commitment to safety saw the yard’s accident frequency rate in 2006 decline to 0.99 from 1.21 in 2005. The Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) measures the number of reportable accidents per million manhours worked.

Yard safety records and performances Despite the heavy workload in our seven yards in Singapore, Keppel O&M maintained its good safety performance during the year. The 10-year low AFR of 1.73 for its Singapore yards in 2005 improved further to 1.20 in 2006 (see Chart 2). Keppel O&M’s customers continued to recognise its safety achievements in various projects across its yards (see Table 1). For the Ministry of Manpower’s Annual Safety & Health Performance Award 2006, Keppel O&M bagged seven of nine Silver awards in the Marine category at the inaugural Workplace Safety and Health Awards ceremony. Co-organised by the Ministry of Manpower and Workplace Safety and Health Advisory Committee, the awards were created to recognise companies for their excellent safety performances in their respective workplaces.