Member commitment

There are 3 key elements to Membership Commitment:

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

SAFEX was established on the initiative of explosives companies' CEO's. The earliest SAFEX events were characterised by CEO participaton from its member companies. This demonstration of safety leadership by the CEO's has been key in reducing the incidence of serious events in our industry worldwide. SAFEX is convinced that the active participation of CEO's in SAFEX not only leads to improved safety performance of the respective companies but also to an enhanced reputation of the explosives industry. Our industry's reputation is crucial for business success.

The SAFEX Contact

On joining SAFEX, member companies are obliged to appoint a person who acts as the SAFEX Contact. The Contact acts as the conduit for information between the member company and SAFEX. SAFEX then becomes the exchange that distributes this information to other member companies. The key information flows entail the following:

1. Incident reporting. The SAFEX Contact is expected to identify an incident that should be reported to SAFEX, notifying SAFEX of the incident and following it up with an Investigation Report after the investigation and any other formalities regarding the incident has been finalised.
2. Applying the learning from incident reports. When the SAFEX Contact receives incident information from other companies via SAFEX, the Contact clarifies the information if necessary; interprets the lessons to make them relevant their company; sends this information to the right people; and follows up on the learning to ensure it has been applied
3. Sharing experiences. Identifies and provides the relevant HSSE experiences within the company in response to requests for such information from SAFEX.

While the role is not difficult, it is crucial. For this reason many of our Contacts are either CEO's; or directors responsible for manufacturing; or directors responsible for health, safety, security and the environment (HSSE)

The Shopfloor.

By the "Shopfloor" we mean anyone, including their supervisors, who works with or is exposed to explosives in the workplace. As the saying goes, this is where "the tyre hits the road". It is at this level in the organisation where the learning from incidents has to be applied. Failure to do so inevitably results in many of our incidents recurring often at great cost. If the learning is applied effectively and people are reminded of it continually, it will not be necessary for us to re-learn the lessons as is often the case.

The learning should be entrenched in whatever operating and safety systems the company uses.