Making safety culture visible at T5

Project background

No question, the scale of the T5 project is impressive and challenging. 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects make it one of the most talked about developments in the industry. But it is not only the size of the project that has attracted so much attention. The innovative approaches to safety employed have hit the headlines too.

BAA, which owns six other major UK airports as well as Heathrow, has focused on creating a proactive safety culture across all operations. This culture is intently participative rather than prescriptive. In 2000, BAA launched its renowned .One in a Million. campaign to set a challenging target for the reduction of reportable injuries. As the name suggests, the campaign involves an ongoing benchmark target of only one reportable accident per million hours worked.

As an addition at T5, it has introduced its .Incident and Injury Free. (IIF) programme. The idea of IIF is to make everyone on site responsible for safety - not only their own, but their colleagues. safety too.

The ultimate objective is to create an incident free site. Achieving this culture requires a strong degree of partnership amongst suppliers working on the project.

Specified Scafftag Systems

BAA already uses a custom designed Towertag system for managing its mobile towers on all other Heathrow terminals and its other airports. However, due to the scale of the project and number of contractors involved, an even wider range of Scafftag systems is in operation on T5.

Scafftag used by all contractors

The Scafftag scaffold tagging system has been specified by the T5 project team to be used by all contractors operating the vast structures which are in place. This helps to ensure shared information on the status of the scaffold is instantly available to all employees from all parties. It means that individuals are empowered to make informed decisions about the safety of the structure. This reinforces the culture of everybody taking ownership for safety.

Safetrak improves efficiency

The Safetrak system has also been adopted at T5 to move all scaffold inspection processes into a paperless, automated format. Inspection information is electronically transferred between the equipment tagging systems and handheld computers using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. The information is then synchronised and centralised by the Safetrak software.

Microtag adds protection

Beyond scaffolding, the Microtag system has also been specified to all T5 contractors to help control HAVS (Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome). A MicrotagÂ® is attached to portable tools subject to HAVS in order to indicate the maximum daily usage time and provide clear, up to date details of inspections.

The Microtag system is waterproof and ensures maximum durability in outdoor industrial environments.

Results that speak for themselves

BAA has invested major resources into safety on the T5 project. This has clearly paid off in noticeable results. T5.s safety record is four times better than the industry average. Over 70% of the workforce believe that T5 is the safest place they.ve ever worked. The statistics go on. As Russell Hyam, Health, Safety and Environmental Manager for BAA, points out: .Through IIF BAA has focused on shaping a positive force at T5 . a safe working culture. The visibility of Scafftag.s systems plays a vital role in supporting this culture.

This probably goes some way to explaining why Scafftag systems have been adopted on some of the other major airports across the globe. These include Dubai International, George Bush Intercontinental (Houston, Texas), Toronto International, Melbourne International and Adelaide.