Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria says it has achieved a significant health and safety milestone of 1,200 days with no lost time injuries at SHI-MCI, Africa’s largest ship fabrication and integration yard located in Lagos.
This achievement is reflective of SHIN’s intense focus on ensuring the health and safety of its entire workforce through significant investment in training and oversight.
Bala Adjuya, senior Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) manager, Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria observes that the shipbuilding industry is potentially a very dangerous one with heavy machinery in operation, explosive gases used for welding and high temperatures in enclosed spaces. This means that there are many challenges to ensuring the health and safety of a large and diverse workforce.
According to him, “The main challenge for Samsung is that we have many employees who have never worked in the industry before. So it is hard to instill an awareness of health and safety. But once you train them, it becomes a skill for life.”
He stated that in addition to continuous staff training, every worksite is investigated for hazards, mitigation measures implemented and active HSE personnel are constantly present onsite to ensure safety protocols are followed.
Samsung Heavy Industries set itself a target of 0.9 percent lost time injury (LTIs) on the Egina FPSO Project in Nigeria, adding that LTIs is an injury sustained by an employee that will lead to loss of productive work time. Even one minor incident will result in a complete reset of the LTIs counter to 0. As of 25th March 2019, SHI-MCI has achieved 1,207 days of no LTIs. In order to achieve this challenging target, SHI-MCI follows a rigorous process.
“It begins from the day that new people come into the yard. We first take people to HSE training even if they only come onto the site for a job interview,” said Adjuya. “It makes me proud that during the massive Egina FPSO Project [Africa’s largest FPSO recently completed] we were able to pull through with no sanction from regulators.”
At the peak of the Egina FPSO Project, Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria employed approximately 5,000 employees at its fabrication and integration yard in Lagos.
Kelechi Ewuzie
