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Drop of 10% in the rate
of work accidents worldwide.
Pont Evêque – Steam iron factory
“HIGH STANDARDS IN SAFETY”
Maurice Billet, Groupe SEB Health & Safety Manager
STRATEGY – LIVING THE FUTURE
HEALTH & SAFETY: A NEW DYNAMIC
In France, accident frequency was cut by 6% and accident severity
by 26% last year, to rates of 18.6 and 0.52 respectively. While these
figures confirm an improving trend since 2005, the Group wants to
step up this process to substantially and permanently improve
safety conditions on a world scale. In 2007, a dedicated Health &
Safety department was created.
In the area of industrial health, the Group continues its efforts to
reduce muscular strain injuries. Measures in this direction include
rotation of staff between work stations, integration of ergonomic
criteria at the product design stage to simplify limb movements
during assembly, and the use of ergonomic notices at work posts,
extensively used in the Group’s factories today.
“The three-year health & safety plan launched by Groupe SEB early this year sets high standards: it aims to
achieve an accident frequency rate of less than 6.5 and a severity rate of 0.3 by 2010, worldwide. This has already
been achieved by some sites, though others, notably in France, will have to reduce their 2007 rates by half to
reach the target. With this in view, we took a number of steps at the end of last year to reinforce day-to-day safety
surveillance in production: training of work-team leaders, a monthly accident prevention review by these team
leaders, and improvement of visual safety warnings. All these steps will be extended worldwide during 2008, in
addition to existing improvement measures. The Group has also begun the procedure to obtain certification for
its health & safety management system, so that by 2010 all our industrial and logistics sites worldwide should
be OHSAS* certified. Three already hold this certification: Cajica in Colombia, Millville in the United States and
Rumilly in France.”
* see Glossary.
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