Waiward Steel reaches 4 million man hours Lost Time Incident (LTI) free

Waiward Steel, an Edmonton steel fabrication and industrial construction firm and a signatory contractor of the Iron Workers (IW), just celebrated an impressive milestone. It has achieved 4 million working man hours Lost Time Incident (LTI) free. That is equal to 2,000 workers working 2,000 hours per year. In this case, it was approximately 800 workers contributing more than 2,000 hours per year over two years.

“The IW is proud of its signatory contractor and the skilled army of safety-conscious ironworkers who made it possible,” the Iron Workers stated in a press release. “The ironworkers contributed well over half of the total man hours that led Waiward to this outstanding accomplishment. Considering the highly hazardous nature of the industry and the ironworking profession, it is an exceptional achievement.”

The last time Waiward had a lost time injury was two years ago. Since then, the ironworkers have been working on projects all over Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan including construction of crushers and hoppers, plant maintenance, demolition and infrastructure. They have been working hand-in-hand with Waiward to ensure that the productivity is high and the incident rates remain low.

Waiward believes in the professional development of its workers and tracking competency to ensure that they are the most efficient, safe and capable workers in the industry. Waiward’s MODOS competency management program was a main contributing factor to its monumental achievement. MODOS is a real time tracking system of behaviours, actions and skills to identify strengths and weakness of workers. It identifies areas of focus and aids in talent placement – all of which lead to a safer and more profitable workplace. Waiward positions the ironworkers to demonstrate their true potential, whether it’s an apprentice or a journeyman.

“On behalf of Waiward, I want to thank the ironworkers for their commitment to building our incident-free culture and for supporting our competency management system, MODOS,” said president of Waiward Steel, Terry Degner.

“We work with our contractors to ensure that they are successful, profitable and maintain high safety standards,” said General President Eric Dean of the IW. “Initiatives like Waiward’s competency management program are of utmost importance not only to keeping the worksite safe but also to increasing productivity, efficiency and profitability; that’s why we have established the Ironworkers’ Standards of Excellence and have in-depth safety training for our ironworkers to maintain high levels of professional competence.”