Safety

Our employees are our greatest asset – we say it often and we do mean it. Therefore safety is part of Ball’s culture and requires the active commitment of every employee and of the company.

We provide safety standards, tools and training for all employees. Continuous improvement, accountability and active involvement of employees are the most important factors in working towards our ultimate goal of zero accidents.

Ball Packaging Europe has had a successful track record related to safety performance. The key performance indicator of our safety record is our total recordable incident rate. We set a goal to reduce our incident rate by 25 percent year over year. Our total recordable incident rate declined by more than 62 percent from 2005 to 2009 to 1.27 recordable incidents per 200,000 hours worked. Safety performance is reviewed with Ball’s management on a monthly basis to ensure progress is being made toward our long-term goal of zero accidents.

Chart: Total recordable incident rate

Ball Packaging Europe committed to become a world-class safe workplace in 2005 and was certified under Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001 in 2009. We are one of the first companies to be granted certification according to the internationally recognized safety standard. Companies are normally granted certification on a plant-by-plant basis, and not as an entire entity.

Our Health & Safety management system is run in line with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The system includes the company Health & Safety policy along with management arrangements and Health & Safety objectives. Also an extensive listing of plant procedures, job safety analysis and risk assessments are part of the system.

One important aspect to improving safety is to change unsafe behaviors by proactively and nonconfrontationally focusing on behaviors that may lead to incidents. Ball utilizes the behavior-based safety approach, which targets specific worker behaviors, and enlists employees at all levels to monitor behaviors and take appropriate actions as needed as well as documenting those actions. By documenting unsafe behaviors, we can follow up to address the underlying issue.

Safety risk management, a fundamental aspect of Ball’s health and safety program, is practiced at all our plants. Through risk assessments, we determine which areas have the highest health and safety hazards. We share this information throughout our operations to improve our safety performance. For example, high noise levels exist inside Ball Packaging Europe’s plants due to the use of high-speed heavy equipment. We continuously work to reduce noise at the source and will share these practices globally. Personal Protective Equipment is an important safety measure in this respect.