Brussels - The European Aluminium Association has announced the winners of its 2009 Safety Solutions competition. In this year's focus stood improving health and safety at the work place. Aluminium producing and processing companies show clear commitment to the welfare of their workers. Whether by involving external expertise, or by harnessing the latest information and communication technologies effectively, they do their best to improve the work conditions of their employees. In the 2009 edition of its bi-annual Safety Solutions Competition, the European Aluminium Association (EAA) singled out Alcoa, Hydro's Nenzing and Bellenberg for outstanding innovative solutions.

"The safety solutions we reward need not be very expensive or complex, on the contrary: The prime objective is to share the best practices in the industry. And clearly, as shown by some of this year's laureates, simple things can really achieve great results." - commented Eirik Nordheim, EAA's Director for Environment, Health and Safety.

First prize goes to Alcoa for their extremely simple yet very effective new solution to an old issue: Transporters and carriers are bound to comply with every health and safety requirement of each location they deliver to or from. However, in practice, different requirements in different locations often cause delays, hinder the completion of compliance procedures and disturb the traffic flow in and around plants. By offering a unique web platform detailing the requirements and safety guidance documents of each plant, carriers are informed beforehand of every requirement both at the loading and unloading points. This system, currently in place for Alcoa's Spanish smelters and soon to be rolled out across its European plants, and other measures such as the optimisation of traffic flow in plants, has helped to further minimise the risk of interference or accidents between trucks, mobile equipment and personnel, and reduced waiting times for carriers by up to 50 percent.

Hydro's Nenzing (Austria) and Bellenberg (Germany) plants hit second place with their initiative to offer a free of charge anonymous external psychological helpdesk run by qualified specialists to their employees. Whatever the issue, nervous or psychological, work related or personal, workers are offered totally confidential external assistance available right from their work place, so that the work place itself becomes a place of confidence and relief.

Alcoa's San Ciprian plant (Spain) won the third prize for their brand new electronic equipment that captures and analyses the physical movements of the workers. The system enables to analyse any sequence of any work process as it is being carried out, and helps identify and eliminate unnecessary efforts, highlighting possible improvements to enhance ergonomics and ease the work. Last but not least, the system allows for testing the changes on an advanced virtual simulator so workers are not exposed to new processes before these have been checked for safety and comfort.

The results of the competition can be viewed at under eaa.net.

Quelle: European Aluminium Association

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