Alcan Packaging, a division of Rio Tinto Alcan, has recognized its Tubes France unit with its highest safety honor: the Gold Bonsai Award for exceptional safety achievement and turnaround. Ilene Gordon, President & CEO, Alcan Packaging, presented the award at a ceremony at the Sainte-Menehould, France, tube plant, on January 16.

Each year, Alcan Packaging's 130 plants around the world compete for the Bonsai Awards, which recognize and promote success in Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) excellence. The Bonsai tree concept was chosen as a symbol of continuous, nurturing care.

Tubes France, a unit of Alcan Packaging's Global Beauty business, won for its "Hands Off" project. The unit employs more than 800 people at four plants in France: Sainte-Menehould, Vienne-le-Château, Vandières and Albertville. The project focused on eliminating accidents between people and equipment. Called man-machine interface incidents, they are one of the most recurring concerns in manufacturing operations.

The aptly named "Hands Off" project mixed two powerful communications tools-video and personal testimonials-to raise awareness of risks linked to running machines. Education also was critical to ensure employees understood the rules and actions to prevent these accidents.

75% Reduction in Accidents Since 2005

Results are impressive and continue to improve: total number of recordable accidents at the four plants is down 75% between 2005 and 2007: to five in 2007 from 10 in 2006 and 21 in 2005. The trend is similar for lost-time accidents: two in 2007 from four in 2006 and seven in 2005.

When presenting the Gold Bonsai Award, Ilene Gordon warmly thanked and acknowledged the employees who gave testimonials and appeared in the safety film.

"It took courage to talk about their accidents and share these unhappy experiences," Gordon said. "The roll-out of the program has been extraordinarily efficient and the plant employees are sustaining their success thanks to the educational component. That is our goal in Alcan Packaging: zero accidents and the safest manufacturing operations possible."

The "Hands Off" program is serving as a best practice for sharing the safety culture in the Global Beauty business. The video was so effective that it was translated into seven languages and used to train more than 1,500 people as of today.

François Luscan, President and General Manager, Alcan Packaging Beauty, added: "We have always given attention to EHS. The fact that it has always been a priority proved better than any words that we do care about financial results, but also about the men and women who make them possible."

The Packaging group as a whole has shown remarkable and steady progress
over the last few years. It marked its best safety results to date in 2007.

Alcan Packaging is a world leader in value-added specialty packaging, ranking No. 1 in flexible food, pharmaceutical, beauty and tobacco packaging, and delivering innovative solutions using plastics, engineered film, aluminum, paper, paperboard and glass to customers around the world. Alcan Packaging is headquartered in Paris, France and operates130 facilities with 31,000 employees in 31 countries. It generates US$6 billion in revenues annually.