PSA Signs, the largest corporate signage company in Sub-Saharan Africa, has achieved a NOSA 4- star grading on its first-time audit.
Sean Rogers, CEO of PSA Signs, explained that the company elected to manage their occupational health and safety risk within the NOSA CMB 253 framework “as the NOSA system is well understood across most businesses in SA and as such when presenting your star grading during tenders for example, it is recognised and accepted as a best-practice programme. Furthermore, by having our programme in a formal management system we will be investing our staff and stakeholders in a structured system.”
Mr Rogers added: “The benefit of the NOSA system being based on a scoring system, is that it is easier to see where resources need to be allocated or where improvements and progress has been made.
The NOSA system takes two components into account when measuring a company’s compliance, namely effort score and DIFR. Justin Hobday, Sales & Marketing Director, NOSA explained: “During the audit, the effort score is determined by scoring each of the applicable 75 elements against findings, and scoring anywhere between 0% and 100% per element. These scores are added to give a final score. In the case of PSA Signs, the company scored 79% in the effort category - in its first year, an excellent outcome for a new system.”
He added: “The DIFR (Disabling Incident Frequency Rate) is calculated by multiplying the number of incidents by 200 000 and then dividing it by the man-hours worked for the period under review. Again, in the case of PSA Signs, their DIFR for the period was 0.85. We then refer to a table to allocate a star grading taking these to outcomes into account. The lower of the two scores determines the outcome. PSA Romano achieved a 4-star outcome this year.”
“All companies carry and manage risk in their business, whether it is financial, product, competitor, or occupational health and safety risk, and it needs to be managed. The most sustainable companies all manage this risk efficiently and effectively. To best manage risk there needs to be in place a formal management system, audited and verified by an independent third party such as the NOSA grading.”
The recently merged PSA Signs now has the largest manufacturing footprint in the corporate signage industry in sub-Saharan Africa, with manufacturing facilities in both the Gauteng and the Western Cape, says Mr Rogers.
“The combined companies have localised service hubs in KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape, and co-operative manufacturing arrangements on the east and west coasts of Africa. The NOSA grading is therefore critical for us to be able provide our enviable range of corporate clients which includes the like of BMW, VW, Hyundai, Jeep, Capitec, BP, Steers, Ford, Avis, Total, Clicks, Engen, Sasol and Pick n Pay, with the confidence to trust us with their brands .”
“Our successes in these markets are in part due to our world-class compliance and quality standards. The NOSA grading therefore builds on this.” Mr Rogers concluded.