British Glass and Pilkington United Kingdom Limited have hosted a familiarisation visit for the new Health and Safety Executive glass lead, Andrew Bowker.
Andrew has recently moved into an industry liaison role with the metals and minerals team. His role involves working across the minerals industry, including glass, to support improvements in health and safety as part of the Helping GB Work Well strategy.
As a former construction inspector, Andrew is new to the glass industry and approached British Glass to arrange to meet with members to gain a better understanding of glass manufacturing.
During the site visit to Pilkington’s flat glass plant in St Helens, British Glass provided Andrew with an overview about British Glass, members and the glass industry in the UK. This included highlighting the sector’s accident statistics, the health and safety forward scheme, key industry themes and the ongoing work of the Occupational Health and IS Machine working groups.
Pilkington were also able to provide a health and safety overview from their perspective as well as providing a site tour of the Greengate and Cowley Hill sites.
Paul Pearcy EHS adviser at British Glass said,
“It’s important for members such as Pilkington to be able to highlight the challenges they face and their approach to health and safety.
“The glass industry covers a huge range of workplace risks, beyond the obvious ones such as high temperatures and broken glass, so we are pleased to have had the opportunity to work closely with Andrew to help him gain that industry knowledge first hand.”
Commenting on his visit Andrew said,
“While I have worked for HSE for almost 17 years in operational roles I have not had experience of glass manufacturing. I am therefore keen to carry out some familiarisation visits to better understand the glass manufacturing processes and the glass market.
“British Glass has been very supportive in helping to arrange site visits and Pilkington provided a very informative and interesting day at their float glass and coating facility in St Helens. I would like to express my thanks to them for taking the time to explain their manufacturing process and the work they are doing to improve their health and safety performance.”
Andrew is keen to meet with other glass manufacturing (particularly container) members to further his knowledge across the sector. Any members that would like to host a visit should contact Paul Pearcy - p.pearcy@britglass.co.uk
Notes:
British Glass members’ H&S committee proactively tackles today’s and tomorrow’s health and safety challenges in the glass industry because the sector’s productivity rests on the skills and knowledge of its employees – making their well-being paramount. All British Glass members are invited to be part of this work. British Glass’ H&S Forward delivery framework gives members practical opportunities to shape, measure and demonstrate glass industry practice and ensure work is aligned to the HSE strategy.
Any British Glass member can be part of the committee.
Pilkington United Kingdom Limited, part of NSG Group, manufactures a wide range of float, coated, rolled, laminated and toughened glass products as well as its own range of high-performance insulating glass units. Glass is distributed direct to customers, either as stock or as bespoke processed products to meet their needs, either direct from St Helens or through its network of branches countrywide. The company is highly focused on quality and service, continually improving to deliver the benefits of the NSG Group's technical ability and innovation to the end user.
