Commitment to Safety
In 2003, Owens Corning took a stand and declared that “our commitment to safety is unconditional.”
Our philosophy holds that all accidents are preventable, safety is everyone’s responsibility and working safely is a condition of employment. Our goal is zero injuries.
The acceptance of responsibility by everyone in the organization has substantially reduced our rate of incidents in recent years. In 2007, our recordable incident rate (RIR) was 1.37, a 28 percent decrease from the 2006 RIR of 1.90. We had 147 fewer injuries last year – 264 recordable injuries in 2007 versus 411 in 2006. There were no fatalities. Sixty-eight of our 131 facilities went the entire year without a recordable injury.
We have not yet met our goal of zero injuries. We have taken significant steps to address our weaknesses and are determined to learn from the past.
VPP STAR Sites
In 2007, two Owens Corning facilities were accepted into the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). The plants in Brookville, Ind., and Linnton, Ore., were the first Owens Corning facilities to be granted VPP Star status under the program.
Work sites that achieve VPP Star status must pass a rigorous on-site evaluation by a team of OSHA safety and health experts. Of the millions of work sites in the U.S., fewer than 1,800 have been accepted into VPP.
Brookville is a roofing plant with about 90 full-time employees. Linnton is an asphalt processing facility with about 15 employees. Linnton is the only asphalt manufacturing facility in the U.S. to achieve VPP Star status and only the 16th VPP Star site in Oregon.
Industry Outreach
As a result of a tragic fatal incident at an Owens Corning facility in 2005, a leader who investigated the incident vowed to do everything he could to prevent a similar accident from occurring again – not only at Owens Corning, but at all glass fiber mat manufacturers. His pledge led to a safety summit for the glass fiber mat industry in 2007.
Held in Atlanta, Ga., the summit included representatives from all of the major glass fiber mat producers. Attendees established and began work on a list of 30 action items. They also agreed to an outcome: “No one ever gets hurt on a mat machine again – period.”
Recordable Incident Rate*
Owens Corning has substantially reduced injuries in recent years
- * Measured by injuries requiring OSHA-defined medical treatment per 100 workers per year