SAFETY & HEALTH
Lincoln Electric ISO certifications can be found here.
Our vision is an accident-free workplace with zero safety incidents. We follow a rigorous safety and health program that adheres to stringent safety standards and best practices to help ensure our manufacturing operations, related processes, and products do not negatively impact the health and welfare of our employees, customers, and neighbors.
LINCOLN ELECTRIC CANADA IN TORONTO IS OUR FIRST ISO-50001 CERTIFIED SITE. SINCE ITS INITIAL CERTIFICATION, THE SITE HAS REDUCED ITS ENERGY CONSUMPTION BY ~180 KWH/1,000 LBS OF PRODUCT. THESE SAVINGS ARE A RESULT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SEVERAL LARGE CAPITAL PROJECTS, INCLUDING LIGHTING, EQUIPMENT, AND MOTOR UPGRADES.We manage environmental, health, and safety (EHS) using a management system approach that includes:
- EHS Policy and Global EHS Directives that establish the Company’s standard expectations, which often exceed our compliance obligations, and framework for EHS performance across our operations.
- Training across a wide variety of safety topics, including peer-to-peer observations and interventions.
- Employee-led joint management safety committees that focus on improving our safety culture by identifying and addressing unsafe conditions, reinforcing safe acts, and instructing one-on-one safe work practices.
- Commitment to International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001 implementation at all major manufacturing locations.
- Extensive auditing, measurement, and process redesign to enhance Safety & Health.
- Regular monitoring of our safety performance, which enables accountability at all levels of the organization.
- Award and recognition programs, including our annual Chairman’s Awards for safety excellence and operational improvement, as well as business unit President Awards and citation awards for high performing employees who make superior contributions to the business.
- In addition to Company-led programs and employee engagement in behavior-based safety and wellness committees, we are actively engaged on Safety & Health standard development committees at key industry organizations such as the American Welding Society (AWS), the International Institute of Welding (IIW), and across various ISO committees to help establish best practices for our employees and end users.
Safety Performance
We monitor and measure several safety metrics across our operations, including DART (Days Away, Restricted or Transferred Case Rate) and TRCR (Total Recordable Case Rate), which measure the frequency of safety incidents that occur within our facilities.
IN 2021, THERE WERE ZERO WORKPLACE FATALITIES AMONG OUR EMPLOYEES AND CONTRACTORS, WHICH IS CONSISTENT WITH THE LAST EIGHT YEARS.We also track and measure leading safety indicators such as percentage completion of task or function-specific training, the closure rate of audit findings, and the closure rate of unsafe conditions and unsafe acts observed at our manufacturing sites. Our 2025 global safety goal uses the TRCR safety metric because TRCR includes DART and all incidents other than first aid, making TRCR a more comprehensive metric (and more commonly used in peer reporting).
- Our 2025 goal is to reduce our TRCR by 52% as compared with our 2018 baseline.
- In 2021, TRCR declined 19% to 1.48 as compared with our 2018 baseline.
Annual data as of December 31 — end of each reporting year
Total Recordable Case Rate per 100 full time employees
Days Away, Restrictions & Transfers per 100 full time employees
2018–2021 Safety Performance1
REDUCTION from 2018 to 2021
REDUCTION from 2018 to 2021
Investing in Automation to Deliver on Safety
The filler rod wire room at the Mentor, Ohio facility handles millions of pounds of material per year. In recent years, steel suppliers started sending larger bundles of wire to Lincoln Electric. The larger bundles meant workers in the Filler Rod department had to manually separate the coils into smaller sizes to introduce them to the line. The extra workload not only added labor and timing constraints but also presented a risk to our employees’ occupational safety and health. To address these challenges, we invested over $10 million in automated equipment and workforce training. New automated lines that can handle and separate coils will run 24/7 to meet customer demands and effectively mitigate the ergonomic risk to our employees.
Targeting Safety and Quality
The Harris Products Group recently installed a new robotic automation system in its Gainesville facility, to manufacture gas regulators. The investment is estimated to have eliminated over 2.1 million turns of the wrist or fingers per year by employees. It includes state-of-the-art camera identification systems, critical torque monitoring, quick change capabilities, and semi-automatic testing of each regulator. The camera assembly that runs the robotic arms can detect a variety of defects, including a misplaced component or improper torquing. Designed, built and installed by Lincoln Electric Automation in Churubusco, Indiana, the new automation system significantly improves both safety and quality.
