Safety First, Last and Always
The title, motto, and core belief “Safety: First, Last, and Always”, was uniquely coined by one of Global Advanced Metals (GAM) employees and truly embodies GAM’s vision for the safety of all people who enter the facility. GAM has always valued the safety and well-being of the employees and contractors while pursuing continuous improvement in the processes, behaviors, and actions. GAM’s safety performance is consistently better than industry benchmarks while our goal is to always push to improve how we plan and conduct safety and improve the foundational culture.
During a safety committee meeting, the safety committee consisting of management and hourly personnel, the committee reflected on past and current performance and decided to reinvigorate safety at GAM adopting new ideas and processes. All employees were encouraged to critically evaluate current practices, processes, and systems to determine what was working, what was missing, and what was not delivering the expected performance.
Out of this work came the introduction of new managing processes such as the development of a long term global Safety Excellence Roadmap and formal SHE planning process. These processes systematically document the improvement plans, measure and review performance, and adapt actions over time. GAM created Safety Visions at each site and, in some cases, within operating teams that set expected mindsets, beliefs, and behaviors. Global Safety Principles were also developed establishing behavioral expectations for all employees. GAM created several new global venues to improve how various stakeholders collaborate daily on safety.
Since the implementation of the Safety Excellence Roadmap, the Boyertown—USA and Greenbushes—Australia facilities have achieved at least two periods of being one-year injury free while the Aizu facility in Japan has worked over 15 years lost time injury free.
As a core value, GAM continues to challenge and adapt how we do safety reflecting on the priority to ensure that everyone working at GAM truly feels that their safety is everyone’s priority, that every employee leaves work each day unhurt, and embraces our motto – Safety: First, Last and Always!