DuPont kudos for RIL’s skill in operational effectiveness

DuPont has announced the winners of the 13th Edition of the DuPont Safety and Sustainability Awards. The awards recognise outstanding initiatives aimed at enhancing workplace safety, sustainability and operational excellence.

Among the winners was Reliance Industries—the largest private sector corporation in India with operations spanning from the energy and petrochemical to retail and telecommunications sectors—for prestigious Global Operational Excellence award.

Reliance Industries (RIL) has been recognised as a global winner in the DuPont Safety and Sustainability Awards on account of the company’s achievements in driving improvements in operational excellence.

Founded in 1957 as a yarn trading enterprise in Mumbai, RIL has since diversified into an owner operated conglomerate with an international reach. Its activities span the energy, petrochemicals, retail, digital services, and media sectors, generating a combined annual turnover in excess of $50 billion. Integrated across the energy value chain through a unique portfolio of upstream, refining, and petrochemicals businesses, RIL is now the second largest producer of polyester fiber and yarn globally, and the sixth largest producer of polypropylene.

Recognising that the company’s rapid, organic growth necessitated an updated approach to organisational processes and governance, RIL decided to codify a unified and structured framework across the group, which would allow more systematic management of existing businesses, and more seamless integration of new businesses. The resulting ‘STAR’ project, which involved the entire organisation—including more than 20,000 employees—embedded a new ‘Reliance Management System’ (RMS) to guide operational, people, and financial management, and provide a scalable base for future growth.

Together, the STAR project and the RMS drove the transition to a more holistic set of management systems and processes. These innovations helped the senior leadership at RIL to enhance effectiveness, maximise efficiency, increase visibility, maintain consistency, replicate wins, and clarify accountability company-wide. Specific elements included establishing a framework of integrated operations management (employing omPro as an enabling tool), rolling out reliability driven asset performance management systems, and implementing new leadership development and learning programs to support the next generation of leaders.

Commenting on the award, Hital Meswani, Executive Director of RIL, said: “This award is a global recognition of RIL’s demonstrated ability of unparalleled efficient operations and excellent project execution.

It showcases RIL’s sustainable approach towards operational excellence.”

“We are very pleased to recognise Reliance Industries Inc for their achievements and commitment to operational excellence,” said Davide Vassallo, Managing Director, DuPont Sustainable Solutions. “Like DuPont, they believe that progress in advancing operational performance allows companies to not only become more competitive and effective, but also serves as a model of greater efficiency and resource utilisation for other companies to emulate.” Jury President Mieke Jacobs, Executive Coach with 20 years of Operations Management experience at DuPont, said that jury members were particularly impressed by both the quality and quantity of the projects submitted for consideration this year. “This growth is quite heartening, as I feel quite strongly that the recognition of positive contributions to workplace safety and corporate sustainability is crucial in galvanising the public and private sectors to promote and pursue improvement projects.”

Monsanto India too gets recognition

Among the winners was also Monsanto India Ltd—a subsidiary of the multinational agriculture company Monsanto—for a Regional Safety Award. “We are very pleased that our hard work and commitment to improve safety in our business has led us to be recognised internationally as a winner of a DuPont Safety and Sustainability Award,” said Mahesh Chandak, Monsanto India and Africa ESH and Human Rights Lead.

“I am proud to say that over the last decade, our programme to mitigate one of the significant risks that our employees face – road safety – has led to an 85 per cent reduction in the number of accidents.

“As the success of the programme became apparent, we extended its efforts beyond employees and contractors, connecting with 1.5 million people in the last four years. We are very proud to have not only helped to ensure that our employees go home safely to their families everyday, but also that we are contributing to the reduction of road accidents across India.”

“We are very pleased to recognise Monsanto India Ltd. for their achievements and commitment to safety excellence,” said Davide Vassallo, Managing Director, DuPont Sustainable Solutions. “Like DuPont, they believe that progress in safety performance allows companies to not only become better corporate citizens, but more competitive and effective.”

With a history stretching back six decades, Monsanto India Ltd (MIL)—a publicly listed subsidiary of the multinational agriculture company Monsanto—has been recognised as a regional winner in the DuPont Safety and Sustainability Awards on the basis of the organisation’s achievements in driving a cultural shift in safety practices.

Monsanto is one of the world’s leading producers of seeds and crop protection technology, with facilities in 69 countries and more that 20,000 employees globally. Headquartered in Mumbai, MIL provides farm advisory services to more than four million registered farmers in India, in addition to seeds and crop protection solutions that benefit more than 1.5 million farmers. The company specialises in 27 variants of hybrid maize seeds, and supports crop productivity through extensive agronomic activities and on-farm technology development.

Road safety is a major challenge in India, with 1.4 million traffic accidents reported every year and around 300 people dying on the roads each day nationwide. Because of this high risk, and the fact MIL has approximately 500 passenger vehicles on the road at any one time for business purposes, the company has invested significant resources in improving its road safety programme. In particular, since 2006 the Monsanto India Vehicle Safety Team (IVST) has led efforts to transform the organisation’s safety culture. The strategy has been implemented in three stages, focusing first on raising awareness, then instilling a sense of individual ownership, and finally fostering team accountability.

Comprised of a diverse set of activities and tools, including structured training sessions, the development of new policies and procedures, ongoing data analysis through in-vehicle technology, and the appointment of team-based ‘Driving Safety Champions’, the road safety program has achieved impressive impacts. In ten years, collisions per million miles have been reduced by more than 85 per cent. MIL has also extended its efforts beyond employees and contractors, implementing a formal off-the-job safety program that has benefited almost 1.5 million people in the last four years.

List of Award winners

Selected by an independent jury comprised of leading experts in occupational safety and sustainability, the 2017 recipients of the global awards include:

• British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. for the Global Safety Award
• Firmenich for the Global Sustainability Award
• Reliance Industries Limited for the Global Operational Excellence Award

The jury also recognised the excellence of the following initiatives by allocating regional awards to:

• Gas Natural Fenosa for the Regional Safety Award, Europe, Middle East and Africa
• Monsanto for the Regional Safety Award, Asia Pacific
• Jacobs for the Regional Sustainability Award, EMEA
• City Developments for the Regional Sustainability Award, Asia Pacific

The jury also extended a special mention of two companies for their unique, innovative approaches to sustainability: Resolute Forest Products (Canada) and Indonesia Medika (Indonesia).

The award ceremony took place in Singapore within the context of the XXI World Congress on Safety and Health at Work 2017. DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS), a business unit of DowDuPont Specialty Products, is a leading provider of world-class operations consulting services to help organisations transform and optimise their processes, technologies and capabilities. DSS is committed to improving the safety, productivity and environmental sustainability of organisations around the world.

DowDuPont Specialty Products, a division of DowDuPont, is a global innovation leader with highly differentiated materials, ingredients and capabilities that help transform industries and everyday life. DowDuPont Specialty Products includes five technology-driven businesses: Electronic Technologies, Industrial Biosciences, Nutrition & Health, Protective Solutions and Sustainable Solutions. Its employees apply diverse science and expertise to help customers advance their best ideas.