Work can be tough, especially in the Energy Industry where the workforce is exposed to many hazards. They mostly work with machines, outdoors or in remote areas which makes it easy for engineers to get ill or injured. When this happens, the company they work for accumulates Lost Time Injury (LTI). Â
What is LTI?
LTI (Lost Time Injury) is an injury sustained on the job by an employee that results in the loss of productive work time. An injury is considered an LTI only when the injured worker: (1) is unable to perform regular job duties, (2) takes time off for recovery, and/or (3) is assigned modified work duties while recovering.
The WTS Way
Last April, our team in Gabon achieved seven years free of LTI. That is 1,5 million man hours LTI free! A great achievement that was possible thanks to all involved parties. Getting there is hard though, and exceptional. How did they do it?Â
We talked with our QHSE Specialist, Gans Smalberger to tell us more. Gans sits in Gabon and has experienced first hand how it is to be part of such an operation.Â
It is a must to consider all possible scenarios, and to have procedures for them.
Gans told us about the difficulties that the industry, the location and the nature of the operations entail. ‘Although we do have a 1,000L backup reservoir, there are times that we go for days without water – Then we go back to plan B. At the same time, the Internet and communication could be quite difficult; thus, we have a plan B & C in place.’
When it comes to the location, Gans highlights that procurement of basic items i.e. PPE can be challenging as well as some long waiting periods for goods to arrive from providers. This is also the case with mechanical parts, especially when they come from overseas. Finally, Gans added ‘everything in Gabon is quite expensive or hard to come by’. That is why, being prepared and not being reliable on factors we can’t control is important
It is crucial, too, that we understand when to push back against the client. It’s all to do with the way you address these issues on behalf of the personnel on location. But at the same time, the personnel in the field learn in a more productive way how to get problems resolved.
Finally, Properly managing risks and ensuring your team is trained and knowledgeable to perform any task safely, every hour of every day, is an achievement by itself. Let alone when all these man hours have accumulated to 7 years. It takes a skilled workforce, a committed management and dedicated supervisors to make it happen.Â
What's Next for WTS Gabon?
At WTS Energy, we are always striving to make ourselves better in the sense of doing business more efficiently, looking for new & better technologies to bring to our client which all boils down to cost saving at the end of the day.
‘As we continue our journey safely and everybody would work as a team, we can not see any reason to set new records as what we’ve done before in the industry. Working as 1 TEAM – Together Everybody Achieve More!!’   – Gans Smalberger
Congrats Team Gabon!
