Safety & Health -  Injury and Illness Prevention

It is a PPG value to provide employees with an injury free career, one day at a time.  PPG's goal is to prevent injuries and illnesses through the implementation of effective safety and health programs.  PPG's focus is on continuous workplace safety improvement through management leadership and employee involvement.

PPG’s risk reduction efforts include:

• Top management, active leadership, involvement, and accountability at all levels and at all locations.
   
• Effective, functioning EHS Leadership Teams develop and implement safety processes customized to the specific risks associated with their operations.
   
• Significant employee accountability and involvement in facility EHS Leadership teams, behavioral based safety processes, ergonomics teams, training, and a variety of other safety focus teams.
   
• Comprehensive employee communication and training for risk awareness and safe work practices.  Established clear definition of global safety requirements and strategies to reduce risk.
   
• Comprehensive reporting, investigation, analysis, and communication of incidents and near miss events through a global reporting system.
   
• Implementation of a global corrective action tracking system.
   
• Comprehensive hazard recognition and control processes at all locations.
   
• Tracking of metrics that center on up stream risk identification as well as downstream results to improve reduction efforts.

In 2000, PPG implemented an internal system for defining and measuring global safety performance. This system focuses on reducing the risk that results in the most significant injuries and illnesses in the corporation.  Dramatic safety improvements have been seen across PPG.  MORE>

The PPG Injury & Illness Case metric was developed by applying Sigma Logic® methodology to safety performance. It defines uniform global reporting requirements and more precisely measures work related injury and illness.

Recent highlights from PPG’s Injury and Illness Prevention efforts:

• In 2002, PPG established a goal to reduce the PPG Injury & Illness Case rate by 25% by 2007 (see top right chart above ). Through significant focus on risk reduction activities, this goal was exceeded in 2005 -- two years early. (PPG calculates all of its safety performance rates as number of events per 100 employees per year)
   
• In 2006, PPG established a new goal to reduce the PPG Injury & Illness Case rate from the 2005 baseline by an additional 25% by 2010.
   
• From 1999 through 2005, PPG’s injury rate has dropped by over 40%. This is a reduction of over 188 cases per year.
   
• Not only have the number of PPG Injury & Illness Cases globally been reduced significantly, the severity of the cases that have occurred has also been reduced (see middle right chart above). PPG calculates the Severity Rate as number of lost work days (including restricted activity days and days away from work) per 100 employees per year.
   
• PPG estimates that, based on improvements from the 1999 baseline, its risk reduction efforts have resulted in preventing over 900 PPG Injury & Illness Cases globally (see bottom right chart above).
   
• By focusing on risk reduction initiatives, the overall rate of injuries in the USA, as measured by the OSHA Recordable Case Rate, has dropped by 35% from 5.9 in 1999 to a rate of 4.3 in 2005 (see chart on bottom left). In this period, the number of OSHA recordable injuries has dropped over 483 cases per year.
   
• PPG's safety performance is favorable in comparison to other industries with similar risks (see bottom right chart below).
   
• Through aggressive risk reduction and disability management, PPG has achieved greater than a 10% reduction in costs associated with workplace injuries in each of the last two years.