Structured competence management ensures process safety at Neste

Images: ©Neste

Neste manages its production staff’s competences through the L2O system, designed and implemented by Qreform to ensure that each shift has the required competences. L2O has improved shift planning and resource management.

Neste (NESTE, Nasdaq Helsinki) develops responsible solutions for transport, businesses and consumers. It helps customers to reduce climate emissions with a diverse range of renewable products. Neste is the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel refined from waste and residues, and it also produces renewable solutions to the aviation and plastics industries. Neste is also a technological leader in high-quality petroleum product refining. Neste wants to be a trusted partner whose expertise, research and responsible practices are widely recognised. In 2018, Neste’s turnover was EUR 14.9 billion. In 2019, Neste was ranked third in the Global 100 most sustainable companies in the world.

Neste operates in an industry where safety must be addressed every day to ensure that processes run smoothly and do not endanger staff or the environment. The starting point for Neste’s process safety is to identify risks in production and manufacturing processes in advance and prevent accidents.

Production competence is managed with the License to Operate system

Qreform has designed and implemented the Neste L2O (License to Operate) system for competence management, based on Qreform’s own Rego HSEQ system. The objective of Neste’s L2O system was to further improve Neste’s process safety by reducing quality deviations and process disruptions.

“Our goal was to improve production competence management and to create a solution for structured competence management and safety culture development,” says Neste’s Competence Developer Maria Ek.

Neste L2O is used for

• Managing employee competences, including their achievement and maintenance
• Shift planning based on valid competences
• Simulating future training needs and competence development
• Designing and maintaining competence matrices for production lines
• Managing and monitoring training material use
• Managing online training
• Ensuring a uniform operational process and practices for continuous improvement

Increased effectiveness is reflected in daily work

At Neste, competence management has been integrated into shift planning and supervisors’ daily work to ensure safe operations and concrete results. Effective resource and competence management also results in cost savings.

“In the L2O system, shift planning and resourcing are based on dynamic shift matrices, which immediately show whether our shifts have sufficient competences on each production line,” Ek says.

“We are also able to simulate the impacts of changes in competence matrices. This allows us to identify resource and training needs in advance,” says Ek.

Neste’s L2O is used to manage the competence of both the company’s own staff and its supplier network in Finland and Singapore.

‘Safety Starts Here’ online training is part of the onboarding process

Qreform has also implemented an online training programme called ‘Safety Starts Here’ for Neste, consisting of eight courses. It aims to increase staff’s safety competence and develop attitudes towards a safety culture of continuous improvement.

“The online training programme was launched a couple of years ago as part of Neste’s company-wide safety campaign. Currently, the training is part of employee onboarding, and almost 5,000 people have completed it,” Ek says.

The training is practical and covers topics such as safety and risk management, systems thinking and the role of human factors in safety, teamwork and safe practices during deviations.

The courses were based on Qreform’s ‘Safety through Skills‘ online courses, whose contents were tailored for Neste. The courses have been translated into six languages.

Today, the L2O system is the global base platform for Neste’s safety training.