OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
Occupational health and safety (OHS) ranks the first among the elements of Tofaş’s, since it is the most important one. It is also an area in many aspects of which the Tofaş plant serves as a reference model within the Stellantis community. The plant is visited by firms wishing to observe Tofaş’s OHS operations and practices in action. Adhering to a proactive and lean approach to occupational health and safety issues, Tofaş seeks to protect everyone coming into contact with its operations from risks that could be detrimental to their health or safety by fostering a sustainable OHS culture and by creating environments that are intrinsically safe.
TARGET: ZERO ACCIDENTS AND OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES
Tofaş strives to maximize OHS awareness not just among its own employees but also among its trainees, visitors, suppliers, and contractors. To this end, Tofaş commits itself to:
- Fulfilling all of its OHS-related statutory and other obligations;
- Abiding by the principle that all employees have a shared responsibility for contributing to continual-improvement processes;
- Soliciting the opinions of all personnel about OHS practices and ensuring participation in them;
- Reducing OHS risks by eliminating OHS threats;
- Continually improving OHS targets.
Tofaş makes use of an OHS Management System in order to achieve zero work-related accident and illness rates. Since the beginning of the company’s campaign to continuously improve workplace safety performance, the Lost Time Accident Rate has decreased by 95% since 2006. In 2023 4,089 employees received a total of 49,860 hours of OHS training.
MESS WORK SAFETY STARS AWARDS FOR TOFAŞ’S MAINTENANCE DIGITAL ASSISTANT” AND “CUTTING EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE SAFETY” PROJECTS
In a “Work Safety Stars” competition organized by the Turkish Employers’ Association of Metal Industries (MESS), Tofaş won awards in the Digital OHS category for its Maintenance Digital Assistant project and in the OHS Ambassadors category for its Cutting Equipment Maintenance Safety project.
Under the Digital Maintenance Assistant project, a wearable device that enhances workers safety was deployed. The device gives the wearer remote access to essential video support and visual instructions during non-routine and critical maintenance situations. These devices also allow experienced workers to capture narrated video recordings of exactly what they are doing. The recordings can then later be used in the training of newly-hired personnel.
Under the Cutting Equipment Maintenance Safety project, a new AI-powered safety system was introduced. The system monitors for the presence of safety glasses during cutting tool maintenance and if the glasses are missing, it reduces the risk of human error and ensures a safe working environment by automatically disabling the air gun.
