Asahi Glass | Occupational Health & Safety

Based on the policy that “no production should be operated without assurance of safety,” AGC Group is ensuring occupational health and safety at its production sites by applying its Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) and securing the equipment's safety.

AGC Group Basic Occupational Health & Safety Policy (Revised on March 28, 2008)

AGC Group will manage its occupational health and safety (“OH & S”) under the policy of “No production should be operated without assurance of safety”, and our leaders will ensure that our OH & S policy should be communicated, understood, and implemented throughout our Group and that all of our employees should be actively involved in the promotion of the health, safety and well-being in our work environment.
We will address any possible issues in occupational injuries and illnesses to achieve continuous improvement in our OH & S performance, based on the following guideline of “Five Axes of OH & S”:

We will focus on Risk Assessments and prevention to make our OHSMS more effective.
We will further improve on-site occupational health and safety programs and activities that involve all employees and develop a sustainable OH & S culture.
Our leaders will ensure a safe work environment for our employees and foster well-being within our AGC community.
We will ensure that OH & S is designed into our equipment and operations, and look for continuous improvement in our work environment.
We will implement OH & S activities in all production line activities and ensure compliance.
We will provide necessary resources and support to materialize it.
We will encourage proactive employee participation in all OH & S activities inspired by open, honest and fair interactions and communications.

Global Safety Management

Given that machines can break down and people can make mistakes, AGC Group is committed to identifying potential risk factors on a continual basis of occupational accidents at its manufacturing sites. We are also combining our traditional safety activities*1 with the occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) to increase the effectiveness of the activities. In addition, we encourage our sites that are self-certifying their OHSMS to obtain third-party certification for the system. As of the end of December 2009, we obtained the following third-party certification.

*1 Traditional safety activities: promotion of the 5Ss (seiri [neatness], seiton [orderliness], seiketsu [cleanliness], seisou [cleanness], and shitsuke [discipline]), hazard prediction, near-miss management (hiyari-hatto), and safety patrols

Number of Sites Obtaining Third-Party Certification for Their OHSMS (as of the end of December 2009)

Location	Number of certified sites
Asahi Glass	1
Japan	3
Asia	6
Europe	38
North America	0
Total	48

AGC Group's Concept of Safety Management

AGC Group's Concept of Safety Management

*2. Risk assessment: Activities to comprehensively identify risks associated with equipment and work processes, to evaluate the risk levels and to implement safety measures, prioritizing serious risks

Topic
Strengthening Health and Safety Activities across AGC Group

Members participating in the Symposium held at the Chiba Plant

AGC Group has been holding its Global Health & Safety Symposium since 2005 in order to share excellent safety measures and discuss common challenges for improving our health and safety levels. In fiscal 2008, we held this symposium in Japan with the participation of 128 employees in charge of health and safety at 16 Group companies in nine countries, who actively engaged in discussions.

Improving the Effectiveness of Risk Assessment

The OHSAS 18001, one of the standards for OHSMS, requires worksites to make risk assessments targeting all employees, all work operations, and all equipment at the sites. In fact, AGC Group tends to have more occupational accidents for operations and equipment on which it makes no risk assessment and it is indeed essential for the Group to increase the scope and effectiveness of its risk assessments.
AGC Group (Japan) had been providing managers and supervisors with necessary training but had not provided employees of manufacturing sites where risk assessments were to be carried out with sufficient training in the past. To tackle this problem, we started our safety enhancement activity in fiscal 2009. In this activity, we select employees in charge of manufacturing and equipment at each of the manufacturing sites as “core safety facilitators” and provide them with intensive education on risk assessment and traditional safety activities. The educated employees will then serve as risk assessment instructors at each of the manufacturing sites for about six months, thereby raising the risk assessment level of the sites. On a medium-term basis, we will increase the safety management level of the sites and foster the development of safety leaders by assigning employees who have participated in the activity to important posts.
Also in Asia, we are providing risk assessment education and boosting the quality of such education measures at our Group companies.

Equipment Safety (Inherent safety design measure)

To ensure manufacturing sites' safety, it is most important to enhance the inherent safety of equipment. Accordingly, AGC Group is raising the safety level of its new equipment by responding to international safety standards such as ISO12100, in addition to implementing safety measures for existing equipment through risk assessment in order to ensure that new equipment introduced is safe.
AGC Group (Japan) encourages employees to be qualified as Safety Assessors*3 in order to ensure that the equipment required for the Group is designed and introduced to its worksites based on the understanding of international safety standards. By the end of fiscal 2009, a total of 159 people working for AGC Group (including employees of cooperating companies) had acquired the Safety Sub-Assessor qualifications. In fiscal 2010, we will establish a “Safety Basic Assessor qualification” as a more basic qualification and encourage not only employees in charge of environmental safety and equipment but also manufacturing managers and supervisors to systematically deepen their understanding of equipment safety by obtaining the qualification. Moreover, we plan to expand this new qualification system to include employees of Group companies in Asia.
As for new equipment to be introduced to AGC Group (Asia including Japan) in and after April 2010, risk assessments must be carried out at the design and manufacturing phases. By the end of fiscal 2009, we repeatedly held briefing sessions in preparation of policy implementation to explain this requirement to all those concerned, including external equipment manufacturers.

*3 Under this qualification system for skills on equipment safety, which was established by some organizations including the Society of Safety Technology and Application, Japan, there are three different levels of qualifications, “Safety Lead Assessors,” “Safety Assessors,” and “Safety Sub-Assessors.”

Occupational Accidents in Fiscal 2009

In fiscal 2009, AGC Group (Asia, including Japan) incurred 76 occupational accidents. As a result of conducting safety management activities, we were able to reduce the number of accidents, in particular of serious occupational accidents, to about one-third over the past four years. In fiscal 2010 onwards, we will also conduct accident prevention activities focusing on human factors*4 in addition to implementing measures for equipment safety.
Since fiscal 2007, we have been collecting information about occupational accidents that took place across AGC Group, including companies in Europe and North America in addition to Asia including Japan. Based on the tabulation results, we will foster group-wide safety management and reduce occupational accidents globally.

*4 Activities focusing on the prevention of unsafe human behaviors

Number of Occupational Accidents in Fiscal 2009*5 (AGC Group Asia including Japan)

	Asahi Glass	Group companies in Japan	Group companies in Asia	Total
Fatalities	0(0)	0(0)	0(2)	0(2)
Accidents requiring leave	4(6)	9(8)	12(16)	25(30)
Accidents not requiring leave	6(11)	9(16)	5(16)	20(43)
Accidents of minor injuries	30(34)	1(1)	Not counted	31(35)
Total	40(51)	19(25)	17(34)	76(110)

*5 The numbers of accidents causing minor injuries and more serious injuries were totaled for Asahi Glass (unconsolidated) and some Group companies in Japan, and the numbers of accidents not requiring leave and more serious accidents were totaled for Group companies in and outside Japan.

* The figures in parentheses represent the numbers of occupational accidents in fiscal 2008.

Occupational Accidents (AGC Group Asia, including Japan)

Occupational Accidents (AGC Group Asia, including Japan)

Changes in the Frequency Rate for Accidents Requiring Leave*6(Asahi Glass*7)

Changes in the Frequency Rate for Accidents Requiring Leave(Asahi Glass)

*6 Number of workers involved in accidents requiring leave per one million actual working hours
*7 Asahi Glass data include employees at all operating sites (including associated companies).

Topic
Communicating a Safety Message throughout the Group

Safety posters (in English, Japanese, and Thai from the left)

AGC Group created a safety awareness promotion poster at the suggestion of the Group CEO. Through this poster, we aim to share the management's principle that “No production should be operated without assurance of safety” across the Group to foster safe manufacturing activities, keeping in mind the message that the CEO wishes to communicate to employees through this principle: “We must give first priority to safety in our manufacturing activities throughout our business operations.” We created the poster in 17 languages (Japanese, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Tagalog, Korean, English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, French, Russian, Italian, German, and Czech) and began distributing approximately 7,000 copies to the plants of Group companies in November 2008. Some of these plants display the poster in several languages. In June 2010, AGC Group revised this safety awareness promotion poster.

Health Management Policy

AGC Group has set its Health Management Policy, regarding it necessary to clearly define the Group's policy of health management for employees.
Asahi Glass has been implementing measures to manage the health of employees based on this policy, which provides for health consciousness, corporate support for employees health, and self-discipline by employees, attributing particular importance to building mental and physical fitness and preventing diseases.

Health Management Policy

The AGC Group has established the following health management policy to be followed by its employees in conducting their business operations, to continuously create value for the world under the Group vision “Look Beyond”

Health consciousness
Employees represent one of the most important assets for the AGC Group, and health is one of the most important elements of the daily lives of employees.

Corporate support for employee health
The AGC Group will actively implement measures to maintain and promote the physical and mental health of its employees, thereby supporting them in driving the growth of the Group by fully displaying their individual abilities, and in striving to lead meaningful lives.

Self-discipline by employees
Employees themselves must be aware of the importance of their health, and they must maintain and promote their health through self-discipline, taking responsibility for their own health.

* We aim to initially implement this policy widely in Asahi Glass (unconsolidated), and to expand its targets in the future to include its domestic and overseas affiliates.

Major health management measures

Special health instructions against the metabolic syndrome
Provision of free-of-charge detailed health checks to employees with findings that require further testing in regular checkups, and of half the cost of medical checkups for the early detection of cancer
Drastic measures to prevent health damage due to excessive work
Encouragement of physical exercise through sport and recreational events

Mental Health Care

In recent years, the number of workers with mental health problems has been increasing, and this is becoming a social concern. Accordingly, Asahi Glass has been enhancing its mental health care measures for employees in line with its Health Management Policy.

Major mental health care measures taken at Asahi Glass

Employees' support program
Under the program, employees and their family can consult external experts (counselors) about their mental problems in person or by phone at no charge. The consultation details are kept strictly confidential.
Training (e-learning) for managers
Training for managers, who play a vital role in the mental healthcare of employees, has been provided through e-learning so that managers can obtain and review necessary knowledge and information.
Mental checkups by employees themselves
For employees to understand their health situation and manage their mental health, mental checkup sheets are distributed, to help prevent and detect their mental problems at an early stage.
Support program for employees with mental problems to return to the workplace
This is a program to support employees who have taken longterm leave due to mental problems to return smoothly to their workplaces.

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