Occupational Health and Safety
The first priority in terms of our responsibilities for our employees has to be preventing and avoiding potential risks. Hereby we follow a preventive approach by identifying and minimizing risks whenever possible. We apply the same advanced concepts of occupational health and safety consistently worldwide and we never stop looking for opportunities to improve.
All of our production plants have obtained OHSAS18001 certification for occupational health and safety management system.
Our accident statistics document the success of these safety measures and show that we really do follow our principles in practice.
Accident Statistic
The rate of accidents at Infineon is substantially lower than the average reported by BG ETEM, the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the energy, textile, electrical and media products sectors. Significantly our figures cover the whole of our operation worldwide and include all work-related accidents leading to an absence of at least one day, whereas the BG ETEM reports work-related accidents resulting in at least three days’ absence of work.
Yet this success does not make us complacent. Our locations report at regular intervals to our Corporate Environmental Affairs and Operations Support, where the data are evaluated together with our company medical officers. Working together with our experts at the locations, improved schemes for protection are developed on an ongoing basis to maintain a healthy working environment for our employees.
Quick help despite allocation - The Earthquake in Japan
The world was shocked with the news on 11 March 2011 when Japan was struck by a strong earthquake and hit by tsunami. The historic disaster was a deadly event, killed thousands of people, destroyed properties and infrastructures in the affected areas. In addition to the unexpected sad news, explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant reported leakage of radioactive materials a day later had aggravated the situation. Within the overall sad situation, we were pleased to know that at least our fellow colleagues in Japan were well and had not come to harm.
On Sunday morning, two days after the earthquake, the crisis team instructed Infineon staff in Japan to work from home. One day later, a travel warning was issued, and already on Tuesday Infineon staff in Japan were offered evacuation to Osaka. Infineon was one of the first companies that offered its employees to move to the safer southern part of Japan or work from other country.
The weeks following the earthquake a wave of commitment, passion and willingness from our sites came to take on responsibility within the company, In addition to the financial donations, employees held numerous benefit events.
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No more than four days after the earthquake, Infineon’s Business Continuity Department implemented a process for measuring the radiation level of cargo coming from Japan had been defined.
Health and Safety of our employees is our highest priority and therefore our process started on our own initiative about 4 weeks before we received the recommendations of the BDI (Federation of German Industries), which were almost consistent with our approach.
Since the start of Infineon's screening more than 1000 measurements have been carried out. So far, no contamination was detected in our received shipments.
Apart from the flurry of activities to protect and support our employees, the same efforts were needed to keep our business running under these exceptional circumstances.
