Thousand safe working days at Finnish power plants and industrial sites

Alstom Powers service business in Finland, Thermal Services, is celebrating today one thousand days without any lost time accidents. This achievement would not have been possible without employees that are fully committed to safety. The improvements on safety performance started in 2008. The results of the improvements can be seen on our work sites today. 

Behind this achievement are close to one million safe working hours of  Thermal Services Finland employees accumulated over the last years in a multitude of demanding projects at power and heat plants and industrial work sites. Alstom executes every year dozens of small and large modernisation, annual outage and maintenance projects in power, steel, chemical, mining, pulp and other industries. Projects are typically conducted in the fields of Air Quality Control Systems (electrostatic precipitators, fabric filters, flue gas ducts), Turbines and Generators as well as Balance-of-Plant equipment (e.g. pumps, valves, pipes). 

Martin Zingg, Managing Director for the local Thermal Services unit, says: This important milestone makes us one of the safest solutions provider in our industry and substantially differentiates us from our competitors in the Finnish market. It is the result of several years of rigorous implementation of safety improvement programs and the full collective commitment to safety of all our employees. 

Improvements on safety have included numerous safety campaigns, the introduction of new and improved safety instructions and work procedures, training of the employees and focusing on high risk activities and their instructions.

The latest safety campaign at Alstom was launched in June 2012. The Alstom Zero Deviation Plan focuses on highly hazardous activities and their related risk control. In the implementation and audit of this campaign nine new Alstom Safety Directives will be followed.

Customers and external stakeholders value our focus on safety. In May the Zero-Accident Forum of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health granted Thermal Services Finland level 1 classification - in the worlds forefront of safety. Botnia Mill Service has selected Alstom as the safest service provider at the Metsä Fibre Äänekoski pulp mill in Finland in year 2011. Also Ruukki Metals Oy has granted the unit an honorary award in recognition of exemplary commitment and work to improve safety at Ruukki Metals Raahe plants in 2010.