Maruti Suzuki targets accident-free manufacturing facilities

Maruti Suzuki India is targeting zero accidents status at all its manufacturing facilities on National Safety Day today.

To encourage greater participation of employees in safety, India's largest carmaker  announced that it will set up ‘Safety Circles’ on the lines of ‘Quality Circles’. Through safety circles, shopfloor supervisors and associates will form teams and suggest preventive measures in the areas of fire and safety.

To enhance reporting of unsafe practices and ‘near-miss incidents’ the company plans to step up training of employees and take steps to make reporting of incidents easier for employees.

According to Manoj Agrawal, senior vice-president (safety), Maruti Suzuki India, “At Maruti Suzuki we have always maintained the highest standards of safety for our people. All our employees contribute to the safety culture by following safe practices at all times and also highlighting the smallest of safety risks. Safety Circle, a new initiative encourages further employee participation. We are hopeful with support from employees we can make MSIL a zero incident organisation.”

The Company also kicked off its annual month-long safety awareness programme. Under this, a series of activities are planned to engage and inculcate safety behavior among employees. The established and successful programs on Hiyari Hatto (for near-miss cases) and Kiken Yochi (hazard protection) will continue with greater focus. 

Several initiatives like safety doors for operational safety in addition to ‘two-push’ button sensors across the shopfloors to safeguard arm and finger injuries helped bring down the incident rate by more than 50% in the last five years. Use of Kevlar gloves and sleeves (having high cut resistance) to safeguard from hand and finger injuries helped to bring down the incident rate by almost 45% in 2015-16 compared to 2014-15.

Coinciding with the National Safety Day, the month-long safety awareness campaign will see employees actively participate in activities on safety. Starting with a safety pledge today by all employees of the company, safety quizzes and slogan and poster making competitions, first-aid training, fire volunteer training with mock drill, training for fork-lift and tow-truck operation and multiple safety audits will be conducted throughout the month.

MSIL says it has a robust safety management system to closely monitor and analyse any incidents at workplace especially on the shopfloor. The company is committed to OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Management System) guidelines, has an apex safety committee and promotes safety culture all through the year with focused activities.

Maruti Suzuki’s continuous efforts towards safety have helped it earn various awards. It is the only four- wheeler company to have won the ‘National Safety Award for outstanding performance in industrial safety’ from the Ministry of Labour for 2013, based on an accident-free year and lowest incident rate.

Other awards include National Safety Award for Outstanding Performance in Industrial Safety in 2009, 2011 and 2012; Greentech Safety Award in Platinum category in the automobile sector for outstanding achievement in safety management in 2013 and 2014; Golden Peacock Occupational Health & Safety award in 2012 and 2014; and the International Safety Award 2014 from the British Safety Council, London