The World Steel Association has highlighted six projects in its 2026 Safety and Health Excellence Recognition programme, featuring approaches ranging from machine safeguards to psychological fitness assessments. Worldsteel said submissions showed greater emphasis on leadership involvement, potentially serious injuries and fatalities, ergonomics, and the relationship between psychological wellbeing and physical fitness.
Japan’s JFE Steel shifted towards engineered protection following a fatal machinery accident in 2015, according to Worldsteel. Its system combines interlock keys, AI-enabled human detection and stronger physical guards. Access doors permit entry only when equipment is safe, while cameras trigger equipment shutdowns when people enter danger zones. Human detection has also been fitted to older equipment where full separation of hazardous areas is impractical, avoiding the need for extensive modifications.
In South Korea, POSCO developed an internal vision AI system to address risks where workers and molten-metal transport vehicles cannot be adequately separated. Worldsteel reported that high-risk events at its No.2 and No.3 steelmaking plants fell from 25 to 11 a month between 2022 and 2026. The system addresses seven high-risk scenarios and uses existing CCTV, servers and open-source software, with no additional capital investment reported. Worldsteel also cited no collision-related injuries or equipment failures since deployment on ladle-car travel and crane-hoisting operations.
India’s Tata Steel introduced continuous monitoring and escalating alerts for process safety risks. The system identifies breaches of safe operating limits, persistent deviations, instrument faults, abnormal data and bypassed interlocks. Alerts escalate according to how often deviations occur and how long they last. Deployment covers seven high-hazard departments, 66 high-risk scenarios and 300 process safety-critical parameters, Worldsteel said.
Occupational health initiatives included Iran’s Mobarakeh Steel, which added standardised psychological screening and confidential professional interviews for all prospective recruits from 2022. Worldsteel reported that 251 candidates, or 6.7%, required further professional review before placement. Decisions are specific to the role rather than determined by a test result or diagnosis alone. A separate crane-operator ergonomics project reported reductions of 43% in local muscle load and 66% in unacceptable working postures through measures including improved seating, controls, visibility and work organisation.