Corus Wednesfield receives top safety award

Employees at Corus’ Strip Processing Centre at the Steelpark in Wednesfield are celebrating after being presented with the ‘CEO Award for Health & Safety’ by Corus Chief Executive Philippe Varin. The business beat off stiff competition from hundreds of other Corus sites across the world to scoop the annual award which was made in recognition of its exceptional health and safety performance. 

Led by General Manager Mick Horan who joined the Corus Strip Processing Centre three years ago, the Strip Processing team has worked hard to improve every aspect of its health and safety. 

The Centre has not lost any work time due to injury for more than two years, a record of which Mick and his team are justifiably proud when you consider the site is Corus’ largest strip service centre employing around 150 people, processing more than 12,000 tonnes of steel every day and despatching 250,000 slit coil items onto 12,500 heavy goods vehicle each year.

“Everyone has worked hard on safety for the last two years,” says Mick.  “When I announced that this was going to be a business with a zero lost time injury rate, the team looked at me like I was mad but a year later we were without a lost time injury and this achievement has been maintained to this day.”

Mick and his team set high health and safety standards and challenged themselves to live up to them. They’ve conducted formal safety tours involving shift managers and team leaders, issued everyone with a personal safety book, implemented “Time Out for Safety” sessions – a group-wide programme - to drive the continuous improvement process and brought in experts from other parts of Corus to advise on specific concerns and issues.

“Sharing information and learning is at the heart of the improvement,” says Mick. “There can be no excuse for us not learning from and incident elsewhere and everyone at the site receives training each year.”

Described as “An outstanding and inspirational…best practice example” by the CEO Award judges, Corus’ Strip Processing Centre is still striving to make further improvements in health and safety.  “There are a million things we still want to do,” says Mick. 

To help identify and drive improvements, the team are encouraged to ask themselves ‘would you let your children work in this business?’ For Paul Ryder, Cell Leader in dispatch, this question has particular relevance.

Paul’s 18 year old son, Craig, suffers from a rare disorder called ‘Cornelia de Langue’ syndrome which means he has moderate learning difficulties. A former pupil of Tettenhall Wood School for children with additional educational needs, Craig recently joined the Steelpark Centre’s workforce in a part time role with responsibilities for cleaning and housekeeping across the site.

“Craig has been an inspiration to us all,” says Mick. “He has some problems reading  so we adapted our safety procedures so he could be taught using pictures.  Craig has become a tremendous asset to the business taking great pride in his job and he shares the rest of the team’s commitment to safety.”

Craig secured his part time job at Corus via the company’s involvement with ‘Business in the Community’ - a Princes Trust charity that aims to inspire and challenge businesses to have a positive impact on the local communities in which they operate.  Mick and his team continue to work with Tettenhall Wood School and its pupils.

For further editorial information contact:  Sharon Kerby at Tonic Public Relations on 0121 628 1110 or 07989 487046.