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Health, Safety & Environment

Clipsal Australia, as a manufacturer and distributor of electrical and data communications accessories aspires to a vision of zero harm to:

• The health & safety of all persons across each of our sites,
• The health or safety of the installers & users of our products, and
• The environment during the manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal of our products.

To achieve our vision, we will maintain an effective Health, Safety & Environmental Management System that is integral to our business processes. The system consistent with internationally recognised standards will enable us to:

• Identify, assess and manage risks to employees, contractors, visitors and the environment.
• Conduct our operations in compliance with all relevant legislation & other requirements as a minimum condition.
• Consult and communicate regularly with our people and contractors about health, safety & environmental issues and improvements and about individual responsibilities.
• Develop improvement strategies on a continual basis, with appropriate targets, which aim to eliminate or reduce harm to people and prevent environmental pollution.
• Provide the necessary resources to meet our targets.
• Foster the welfare and development of our employees.
• Develop corporate procedures, working instructions, forms and training manuals to assist each business unit to develop: Safe places of work, systems of work, and Safe people at work; that do not adversely impact upon the environment.
• Continually review our performance and reassess our goals.

We will be successful when our vision becomes reality and when our performance is recognised by our employees, relevant government authorities and competitors.

Health, Safety and Environment Management System

Clipsal has implemented a Health, Safety and Environment Management System. The management system is used throughout our manufacturing and distribution centres as an approach to anticipate, identify and manage both workplace health and safety hazards and our interactions with the environment. It is also used to ensure ongoing compliance with relevant legal requirements, and to deliver on continual improvement through implementation of projects on our Corporate Health, Safety and Environmental Program.

The management system is aligned to the requirements of the Australian Standards AS/NZS 4801 and international Standard OHSAS18001 for Occupational Health and Safety Management and the International Standard ISO 14001 for Environmental Management.

ISO14001 Environmental Certification

In December 2006, the Clipsal manufacturing facilities located at Bowden, Nuriootpa, Strathalbyn and Wingfield in South Australia, Bayswater in Victoria, and the National Distribution Centre in South Australia met the requirements for ISO14001 Environmental Management System Certification.

AS4801 and IOHS18001 Occupational Health & Safety Certification

In December 2006, the Clipsal manufacturing facilities located at Bowden, Nuriootpa, Strathalbyn and Wingfield in South Australia and the National Distribution Centre in South Australia met the requirements for AS4801/ IOHS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Certification

Key Environmental Management

As part of Clipsal’s Health, Safety and Environmental Management System, we are committed to monitoring, identifying and implementing opportunities to reduce our key impacts to environment.

Waste

Our operations generate general and hazardous wastes such as oils. Waste minimisation projects have been implemented including the elements of:

• Reusing materials; and
• Recycling of waste streams.

Energy

Our operations use electricity and gas energy sources to operate both fixed plant in the manufacture of our products and mobile plant to move and distribute our products.

Audits to identify opportunities to reduce our energy consumption at our sites where there is greater demand have been completed by Schneider Electrics Energy Management Services. Some of these projects are now being further developed.

Water

Our demand for water is mostly for domestic processes, water is used for some closed system cooling processes.

We have been active at implementing projects to reduce our water consumption through reducing irrigation and installing waterless urinal systems.

Links

Schneider Electrics Energy Management Services

Clipsal 21, A Global Manufacturing Strategy

In 2002, the company embarked on an innovative new global manufacturing strategy for the 21st century, aptly named Clipsal 21. This involves a fully integrated strategy to drive improvements through the development of low cost production, ‘on time every time’ goals, customer quality targets and product focused business units.

The strategy took a giant step forward in April 2003 with the introduction of the semi-automated assembly line at Clipsal Strathalbyn in South Australia. The assembly line has the capability to produce over 4 million 2000 Series twin power outlets per annum and has exceeded expectations in terms of speed and efficiency.

With the majority of this project done in-house, the knowledge and skills gained in documenting this automation process gives us the experience to facilitate further automation projects in the future.