A safer future

SSG Entre continues to grow and is now well on its way to becoming an industry standard. At the current time, Sweden’s pulp and paper mills require their contractors to have completed the SSG Entre basic training course and to be equipped with an ‘Entre’ passport. In addition, the concept has spread to a large number of other industrial sites in the steel, mining, chemicals, energy, engineering and sawmill industries.

“Over 70,000 contractors have been approved since the start in late 2006. Many more industries are also in the pipeline. Large swathes of Swedish industry now take part in the collaboration. At the same time, discussions are underway about new partnerships with Norwegian, Finnish and European process industries,” states Jonas Berggren, CEO of the SSG Standard Solutions Group.

Fewer near misses
The background to this massive focus on an industry-specific interactive safety training course is that contractors have previously been over-represented in accident statistics. Traditional safety training has proven time-consuming, costly and ineffective. Contractors have been forced to go through similar briefings at several different mills before every large-scale maintenance session, which has unfortunately created low motivation and a poor focus.

At the same time, the industry usually pays for the contractors to attend these safety briefings. A lot of time has also been spent on keeping the information up to date, and on checking that the information has really reached everyone concerned.

Making sustainability a standard
SSG is owned by the seven biggest forestry industries in Sweden, but the company’s services are also used by other process industries. SSG is working to develop common standards within the industry as a means of achieving greater availability, operational reliability, personal safety and also, increased sustainability. SSG has so far drawn up more than 450 technical standards.

“Whatever the area in which we produce a standard, the key is to achieve energy efficiencies and use as few resources as possible in production,” explains Berggren. “Our owners and customers have amassed enormous experience in making investments. Our task at SSG is to refine that knowledge and transfer it into standards that can be used to support procurement, planning and design.”

Saving the environment and money
SSG has also built up a web-based product database that holds around 600,000 articles with unique article numbers, descriptions and classifications. The SSG product database is a strategic resource for uniform product data within the company, the group and the industry as a whole.

Maintaining order in the article structure is crucial, helping companies signed up to the SSG product database to reduce tied-up capital, lower purchasing costs, increase plant availability and cut administration. The article description is the same for all linked units and allows cooperation with other units, both within and outside your own company. Today, the concept is used in much of the Swedish forest industry, in an increasing part of the Swedish steel industry and in the energy sector.

Lifecycle economy
SSG’s standards have made it easier for the industry to put pressure on suppliers. Those who want a chance in the procurement process need to meet the requirements set: “And here it is important to stress how significant the concepts of sustainability and lifecycle economy are. Whatever the area in which we produce a standard, the emphasis is on meeting a need, but naturally with an eye on creating energy efficiencies and using as few resources as possible in the production process. In addition, the number of stock items can be reduced,” says Berggren.

Environment passport for employees
The SSG Environment Passport is an interactive, web-based environmental training course aimed at all industrial personnel. The purpose of the course is, at a low cost, to give all employees a basic level of environmental knowledge as well as an insight into the environmental effects of the plant’s activities.

The Environment Passport comprises three different modules – the landscape, the forest and, if required, the mill, which is an industry-specific module. Having all the modules activated increases the scope to raise employees’ awareness of and expertise in the impact of their operations on the wider environment.