BASF’s plant in Sparta, Tennessee, recently received the Workplace Safety Improvement Award from the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the site’s implementation of the exposure reduction process (ERP). The program utilizes peer-to-peer observations to highlight risks and addresses them before they can become a safety incident.
“There has been a dramatic change in the safety culture of the plant since we implemented ERP two years ago,” said Andy Schmitt, BASF’s site director at the Sparta plant. “Employees have embraced the ownership of the program and are taking responsibility for their safety and the safety of their coworkers.”
While utilizing ERP, the facility has operated more than 600 days without a recordable incident, the equivalent of roughly 450,000 work hours.
The Sparta site, which is part of BASF’s performance materials division, employs more than 100 people who produce colored specialty resins for automotive, consumer, industrial, power distribution, telecommunications and advanced color technology uses.
Headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, BASF Corporation has more than 20,000 employees in North America with sales of $19.7 billion in 2018. The company is the North American affiliate of BASF SE of Ludwigshafen, Germany.
For more information, visit www.basf.com.