Earning the DNV (Det Norske Veritas) Management Systems Certificate, known as the OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) 18001, is a significant achievement on the part of the entire facility and all New Berlin employees. It is the third DNV certificate the operation has earned, and holds.

The OHSAS 18001 certificate proves that ABB's management system has been measured against a best practice standard and found compliant. DNV is one of the world's largest Quality Systems Accreditation bodies and helped establish best practice standards that corporations are benchmarked and tested against.

The purpose of the OHSAS 18001 certificate is to let employees and other stakeholders know that ABB proactively protects the health and safety of their workforce. OHSAS 18001 helps ABB to manage, measure, and improve our health and safety procedures through: identifying hazards and assessing risks in our work environment; developing methods to eliminate hazards and risks; and implementing measures to evaluate further improvement and strengthen ABB's ability to meet strategic objectives.

The OHSAS 18001 is issued by a third-party accreditation body/registrar. In order to receive the OHSAS 18001 certificate, this party measures a company's management system by evaluating very specifically the nature of its activities, and the conditions under which it operates. Now that ABB received the certificate, we are in constant review to stay compliant with all national, state, and local protocol when it comes to health and safety.

ABB employees benefit via this certification, knowing that we are working in an environment deemed safe and healthy, per DNV standards. It's a solid foundation that indicates ABB's commitment to safety. Because the focus is concentrated, and compliance is ongoing, the chances for employees to be subjected to, or suffer, personal injuries also decrease as a complement to certification.

Reduced material losses caused by accidents and production interruptions, and reduced insurance costs, in addition to costs due to absence of employees, are additional benefits to employees and the company.