How industry measures up to HSE standards

While there seems to have been a general improvement in health and safety standards in the tire and rubber industries over recent years, the situation is blurred by wide variations in how performance in this vital area is reported by major players in the sector.

Corporate and social responsibility reports from leading tire and rubber companies, reveal a raft of impressive plans underway, backed by approvals from various independent certification bodies. These typically include zero-accident strategies and initiatives around everything from safety leadership and employee-engagement to safe-lifting and recording of near misses.

But, perhaps, the best guide to a company's performance in this area is the quality of its systems for monitoring safety and the transparency of its reporting—thereby making safety an issue for all stakeholders in a group, from employees to investors.

A look at reporting by a sample cross-section of major companies shows substantial differences in the way health and safety is monitored around the world. Moreover, there is little evidence of standardization in reporting that could help improve safety across the industry.

One of the more informative companies is Pirelli, which reported an accident frequency index of 0.48 in 2015, a reduction of 6 percent compared to 2014 and 73 percent compared to 2009. The tire maker has a stated target to reduce this index by 90 percent by 2020 compared to 2009.

Pirelli also issues an accident severity index for the group, which in 2015 was 0.16, substantially in line with the 2014 figure and slightly below the 0.18 level recorded for 2013.

Pirelli reported two fatalities among its employees in 2015: one at its operating unit in Yanzhou, China, one at the operating unit in ATCO, Egypt. This compares with zero fatalities recorded in the previous two years.

Interestingly, Pirelli's Europe and Latin America operations had higher accident-frequency and accident-severity rates than the those in other geographical areas where Pirelli operates—Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania. This was despite a relatively high number of commuting accidents related to road safety short-comings in emerging countries.

The AFI related to employees of external companies operating at the premises of Pirelli amounted to 0.37. The figure, which was below the average of the group as a whole, was down from a value of 0.52 in 2014.

In 2015, the occupational diseases frequency index came in at 0.07, corresponding to a few dozen people out of all the employees of the Pirelli group. As part of the production process, it said, there were no workers with high incidence or high risk of diseases related to their occupation.

Swedish rubber group Trelleborg has a health and safety target that at each production site: cases of "lost-work" injuries and illnesses should be below 3.0 per 100 full-time employees per year; and the average number of working days lost due to such causes should be less than 50 per 100 full-time employees a year.

In 2015, the average outcome was 1.9 lost work cases per 100 employees, down from 2.0 in 2014. Some 74 percent of Trelleborg sites had an LWC value of less than 3.0, compared to 78 percent the year before.

The average number of days lost per injury at Trelleborg was 29.8 compared to a prior-year figure of 29.3. Some 72 percent of the group's sites had a value of less than 50.

In 2015, a total of 238 cases resulting in at least one day's absence was reported, up from 223 in 0214. The most common causes were heavy lifts or other manual operations. Trelleborg said its facilities "continue to demonstrate a long-term positive trend in terms of work-related injuries/illnesses in relation to the number of employees."

Goodyear's CSR report for 2015 highlighted a 36 percent reduction in total injury rate since 2011. Its CSR report include a chart indicating that the total incident rate across the global manufacturing group had fallen to 1.76—down from 1.96, 2.09 and 2.75 in 2014, 2013 and 2012 respectively.

The Akron-based group calculates its TIR figure as the number of cases multiplied by 200,000 then divided by total work hours, which examines the number of injuries per 100 employees. Injuries included in its TIR includes those that require medical treatment above first aid, as well as restricted and lost-time injuries.

Goodyear said it received notification of 19 safety and environmental violations and incurred $64,178 in fines in 2015. The group added that it expected to meet compliance goals of zero violations and penalties in 2016 and, more generally stated that zero incidents is its ultimate goal.

However, Goodyear has since received citations from the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Administration following investigations into accidents at its Danville tire plant, where four workers were killed in separate incidents between August 2015 to August 2016.

VOSHA cited Goodyear for these and many other alleged safety violations at the tire factory and fined the company more than $1 million. The tire company is currently contesting these citations.

Japanese group Bridgestone restricts its reporting of health and safety incidents to overall frequency and severity rates. The frequency rate is based on: (the number of injuries/total actual working hours) x 1,000,000.

Bridgestone's incident-frequency figure was 0.13 in 2015, down from 0.25, 0.18, and 0.44 in 2014, 2013 and 2012 respectively, according to its sustainability report for 2015.

The incident severity-rate figure was 0.006 in 2015, compared to 0.004, 0.06 and a spike of 0.47 in 2014, 2013 and 2012 respectively. Bridgestone noted a year-on-year increase of seven serious injuries including fractures due to falls, to 20, in 2015, across the group's 190 production and logistics sites.

French group Michelin includes information on its health & safety performance in its 2015 annual and sustainable development report, though data on accident or injury rates is limited.

A single graphic shows a drop in the TCIR—the number of workplace incidents affecting employee health per number of hours worked—at 2.67 in 2015, down from 2.84 the previous year. Michelin is targeting a TCIR of below 2.0 by 2020 the report states.

Freudenberg Group began using the LDIFR based on a pro-rata consolidation of its joint ventures in its internal reporting in 2015. It measures all accidents at work involving at least one day's absence per million working hours, and also includes data for temporary employees and agency staff.

The German rubber group's annual report for that year records an LDIFR of 1.3, down from 1.4 in the previous year. Based on the consolidation method for joint ventures, the LDIFR was 1.4, compared to 1.5 in 2014.

The total number of accidents resulting in at least one day's absence from work during the year under review was 96 compared to a prior-year total of 95. There were seven serious accidents in 2015 up from six in the previous year.

Overall, the figures indicate that global players in the tire and rubber industries are, at least, moving in the right direction in terms of reaching the aspirational goal of zero lost-work incidents at their facilities.

It should be remembered that this analysis covers just a few of the largest manufacturers and that the quality of reporting is much poorer outside the major publically listed companies. At all levels, though, it seems that there is a need for the industry to come together to develop a common approach to measuring its progress, and failings, in this critical area.