As part of its commitment to the highest safety and health standards, the World Steel Association (worldsteel) recognises excellence in five of its member companies for delivering demonstrable improvements in safety and health.
Shalini Kumari, Manager, Safety and Health, said, “I am proud to recognise the commitment and efforts of our members towards safeguarding worker safety and health. This year’s diverse, impactful practices were greatly appreciated by the judging panel, and our publication takes you through the best of those. We see a rising trend in the use of AI, robotics, and technology as enablers to reduce risk. Members have showcased pioneering approaches to make these tools accessible to employees and contractors.”
The recognised companies this year are:
For safety culture and leadership
EMSTEEL – Achieving safety excellence
Building on the success of the original Aman Project (2018–2019) – “Aman” meaning safety in Arabic – EMSTEEL launched Aman 2.0 on the 2023 worldsteel Day for Safety and Health at Work. This transformative programme established a robust framework that integrated advanced leadership, operational excellence, and digital safety tools to drive continuous improvement in safety performance.
Implemented in 2023–2024, Aman 2.0 enabled significant improvements in employee engagement, risk management, and compliance.
For occupational safety management
ArcelorMittal – Safety Hub
Safety Hub enhances safety leadership by providing a 360-degree view of behaviour management and the conditions under which operations are carried out on the shop floor — with a strong focus on people’s health and on intelligent systems that accelerate continuous improvement. By centralising all safety-related information and tools into one platform, Safety Hub enables unified visibility and better, faster decision-making across all levels of the organisation. The system combines real-time computer vision, smart devices, and machine learning to detect unsafe behaviours, monitor high-risk tasks, and equip safety walkthroughs with digital tools that enable data capture, traceability, and analysis of observed risks.
For occupational health management
Mobarakeh Steel Company – Ergonomica AI – Intelligent ergonomic risk detection and prevention system
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a leading cause of absenteeism in the steel industry, driven by poor postures, repetitive tasks, and manual handling. Conventional ergonomic tools – rapid entire body assessment (REBA), rapid upper limb assessment (RUPA), National institute for occupational safety and health (NIOSH), Ovako working analysis system (OWAS) – are slow, expert-dependent, and unsuitable for large-scale prevention. To address this challenge, Mobarakeh Steel Company created Ergonomica AI – an intelligent, non-intrusive system that automates ergonomic risk detection. Using standard CCTV or mobile video, Ergonomica analyses 135 anatomical keypoints per person, applies validated ergonomic models, issues alerts, and stores data for dashboards and preventive action.
For process safety management
POSCO – Development of blast furnace camera image processing technology to secure worker safety
POSCO has installed cameras that can monitor the tuyere, with workers watching the video from the main control room. However, since workers cannot continuously monitor the tuyere camera, some changes in the tuyere system may go undetected. To address this problem, POSCO developed a technology utilising AI image processing and tuyere cameras to determine abnormalities in the injection through the tuyere. Additionally, the technology automatically recognises any blockage of unreduced materials at the front of the tuyere and prevents collision by properly reducing the ores. Workers are immediately notified if there is a risk of a tuyere bending, allowing them to quickly respond to potential problems such as gas leaks and tuyere damage.
Tata Steel Limited – Preventing loss of containment (LoC) of hot metal through safety instrumented system in rail-based hot metal transport
In integrated steel plants, torpedo ladle cars (TLCs) are used to transport thousands of tonnes of hot metal daily over extensive rail networks. Any derailment of a filled TLC can cause catastrophic loss of containment, hot metal–water explosions, serious injuries, and major business disruptions. Historically, derailments occurred mainly due to manual errors in track ‘point setting’. To address this high-risk scenario, a safety instrumented system was developed and deployed across the rail network.
More details on each of the initiatives can be found in worldsteel’s Safety and Excellence Recognition 2025 publication.
The names and affiliations of the external judges for this year’s safety and health excellence recognition are as follows:
- Jasper Smit, Resilium
- Jan Hoenselaar, Independent consultant
- Katharina Meese, Ajin Prasanthan and Magnus Magnusson, Draeger
- Henk Reimink, Independent consultant
- Mick Cassar, Independent consultant
- Paul Brooks, Bekaert
- Giridhar Rao, Stacy Richardson, Wilson Xie, Stacey Blundell, Stewart Ayrey, Erik Johnson, Scott Shinn, 3M
- Enio Viterbo Junior, Independent consultant
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Notes
- The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world, with members in every major steel-producing country. worldsteel represents steel producers, national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. Members represent around 85% of global steel production.