Prevention is the motto

Dec 18, 2019

The health and safety of its employees is paramount to the Dürr Group

The physical health, safety and wellbeing of its employees are top priority for the Dürr Group. The aim is to ensure that accidents do not happen in the first place – this is what the company strives for on a daily basis. Its health and safety strategy, ‘STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE IN SAFETY’ reflects this.

Health and safety – an integral part of daily work

The health and safety principles of the Dürr Group are firmly embedded at all levels of work. They form a framework for globally standardized processes with predefined responsibilities and reporting channels up to top management level. The corporate philosophy is to comply continuously with safety standards, to analyze incidents, and to implement consistently improvement measures. In the case of emergencies, the company ensures that response times are short, that assistance is provided quickly, and that more serious consequences can be prevented.

Framework

Health & Safety principals
Strategy
Responsibilities
Organziational Instructions

Activities

Online and on site trainings
Safety inspections
Compliance with H&S specifications
Reporting

Check

Analysis
Lessons learned
Process improvements
Exchange of experience
Global H&S-Meetings

Clearly defined structures enable the company to establish its health and safety principles throughout the Group. All offices, manufacturing facilities and project sites are obliged to comply with the company safety standards on a consistent and ongoing basis. Local health and safety managers are in charge of implementing the Group-wide Health and Safety Guideline in all companies around the world. Together with area coordinators that work across the companies, they form cross-functional teams, in which best-practice methods are shared and improvement measures developed. The results of these ‘lessons learned’ are communicated all the way down to local level and implemented within the subsidiary. All progress is reported to Dürr management.

Health and Safety organization structure at the Dürr Group.

Identify, prevent and raise awareness – prevention is the motto

The clear aim of the Dürr Group’s health and safety strategy is to prevent accidents at work. The motto is therefore prevention.

This is ensured in two ways. Firstly, the company provides regular health and safety training to all employees, as carried out most recently. The Dürr AG Board of Management and the Dürr Management Board had decided that all employees worldwide should receive online health and safety training in October 2019. The training, ‘Safe in the workplace’, raised awareness for potentially dangerous situations, informed staff about preventive measures, and provided basic knowledge on how to behave correctly in emergencies. Participation in the training, which finished with a test, was compulsory for all employees within the Group.

Secondly, by analyzing incidents. The company established a Group-wide H&S reporting in 2017. It enables the H&S management to identify accident hotspots and develop targeted improvement and preventive measures such as key topics for training. The investigation of near misses is particularly useful in this regard. This helps identifying potential hazards at an early stage and raising awareness among employees.

Incident rate

Number of work-related accidents per thousand employees (including external staff, excluding commuting accidents)

Group-wide figures from 2017 – prior to that: Germany only

Certified health and safety management system – ISO 45001

The Dürr Group makes every effort to reduce safety risks for its employees and subcontractors in order to prevent injuries, accidents and work-related diseases. Many of the worldwide company sites have well-established occupational health and safety management systems. In the future, they will be certified to the international ISO 45001 standard (‘Occupational health and safety’) by independent test institutes. This creates transparency and demonstrates – also toward customers – the effectiveness of the company’s H&S management systems. The Group’s aim for the majority of its production companies to become ISO 45001-certified by 2022.

Health and safety as an award criterion for suppliers

The Dürr Group expects its suppliers and contractors to exercise the same due diligence about health and safety and to observe the same safety standards that it has in place. This aspect is an integral part of the value creation process in the company. In other words: when registering, new suppliers must meet minimum requirements for health and safety standards. When it comes to existing suppliers, the company conducts ongoing assessments, annual evaluations and supplier talks in order to guarantee health and safety practices and develop them further.

Any supplier that fails to comply with the required health and safety standards will no longer receive any orders.

Jaroslaw Baginski

Leader of the Cross Functional Team Health & Safety at Dürr

Dürr Systems AG
Carl-Benz-Straße 34
74321 Bietigheim-Bissingen
Germany