Customer case |
15 September 2017
For the first time ever, SCA got together with SSG’s electrical officers and managers from all SCA units and plants, except for the four pulp and paper mills.
“It was a good review and excellent training,” says Jan Waluszewski, head of protection and safety at SCA in Sundsvall.
SCA has now made a decision to use the SSG Compliance Tool throughout the group in order to create better electrical safety procedures.
Around 20 people from Timber, Logistics, Forestry, Energy and staff from Piteå in the north to Sundsvall in the south took part in this unique SCA day in order to discuss the new Electricity Safety Act and to come up with collective new internal procedures for compliance with the Act. Jan Waluszewski in Sundsvall and Dick Edin in Munksund, who also received assistance from Johnny Jansson and Patrik Eriksson, SSG’s experts in the field, initiated the gathering.
“It was a good review and excellent training. As the pulp and paper mills had already had their own reviews, we decided to gather together all the other SCA units to attend a collective seminar with workshops. While the mills had already made a start on their preparations sometime previously, we had to start all over again for our medium-sized work sites, such as all the sawmills, planing mills, nurseries and timber terminals,” says Jan Waluszewski, head of protection and safety at SCA in Sundsvall.
“Our aim of the day was to play down the situation, but also to let people know what is needed and what has to be done,” he continues. “We managed to calm down all the people who were very worried about the new legislation beforehand, and we closed ranks well. We also tried to come up with common denominators so that we could benefit from one another’s expertise and experience – that is the powerful thing about this. The electrical officers out at the individual units do not meet up all that often.”
The topics discussed during the day were:
SSG also provided information on the requirements of the new Electrical Safety Act – responsibility for personal safety, electrical installation and other installation, the responsibility of holders and the client requirement.
Their own organisation and how best to organise the work at each unit were then discussed. During the day, participants were also given access to the SSG Compliance Tool so that they could manage all necessary electrical documentation.
The day was very successful from SSG’s standpoint as well.
“Our aim is to assist industrial groups and their plants with the demands of the Electrical Safety Act by means of our SSG Compliance Tool and our training programmes on electrical responsibility and safety. If we can also help them to start their own networks within the SSG sphere, this is another bonus for everyone,” says Johnny Jansson, Senior Advisor at SSG, explaining that there is currently major demand pressure on these SSG services as a consequence of the new electrical legislation.
“During the day, we also realised that the SSG Compliance Tool is a handy and rational tool for dealing with this. It is based on the fact that we share expertise and experience between units and use one another’s documents. Hence we have agreed with SSG on the use of this tool at all SCA units. We are building up our electrical management system using the SSG Compliance Tool. We will have an online manual that will provide us with structure in respect of instructions, responsibilities and subsequent inspection in accordance with new electrical act,” says Jan Waluszewski.
“It may otherwise be difficult to gain a good overview of electrical responsibility within a group, particularly when a new electrical act came into force on 1 July 2017,” he continues. “The SSG Compliance Tool gives us a complete electrical management system which is adapted in line with the new electrical act.”
From an electrical safety standpoint, SCA otherwise considers itself to be very well organised at its plants.
“Everything is at a very high level in a technical sense, and we have no specific electrical safety shortcomings at their plants. We carry out annual audits, and our insurance company makes clear demands as regards how we deal with electrical safety. All our systems are built to handle continuous operation, disruptions and unwanted events. What we now have to do is review, revise and make sure we have written procedures rooted in the new legislation,” says Jan Waluszewski.
After the meeting, the electrical officers were tasked with firmly establishing concepts and knowledge at their respective plants.
“As we now have a common approach to documents and document management thanks to the SSG Compliance Tool, this is also having an impact at owner level. Hence the executive management and CEO have been notified of the situation. This means that the local unit managers will receive the message from two different directions – from SCA’s management and from the electrical officers. At the same time, our insurers still demand that we carry out our audits and have regulations relating to electrical safety,” says Jan Waluszewski.
SSG’s new, interactive online service is a digital tool for systematic electrical safety work that will help companies to use a specific structure to build up and collate rules relating to electrical responsibility and create a handbook The SSG Compliance Tool is a handbook for electrical officers based on electric safety instructions SSG 4500 and SSG 4501.
The SSG Compliance Tool is web-based and can be accessed 24 hours a day on the SSG website. Users can work in an interactive interface to create custom handbooks for their companies and meet regulatory requirements for internal inspection and other elements using a standardised working method. The service also includes a guide which can provide assistance and inspiration from other companies.
The SSG Compliance Tool is compliant with the new electrical act which came into force on 1 July 2017. Johnny Jansson, SSG’s Senior Advisor, assisted with the investigations for the act as a representative of the industry, sitting on the expert committee that assisted the investigation in order to produce a legislative proposal suited to current needs.