July 23, 2010

Interview with Xandra Haslinger, HSEQ (Health, Safety, Environment and Quality) Officer in the Ion Exchange Resins (ION) business unit of LANXESS

Ms. Haslinger, please briefly describe your responsibilities as HSEQ Officer in the ION BU.
Xandra Haslinger: A large number of the ion exchange resins marketed by us are used in water treatment and this means a lot of registration work. Due to the complexity of the issue, we are in very close contact with the Group Function Industrial & Environmental Affairs (IEA) of LANXESS. You could say I act as a sort of interface between IEA and our Marketing Department. However, I am also the contact for any inquiries which are a bit out of the ordinary, whether these concern quality agreements or projects which affect the safety and quality standards of our products and systems due to more stringent EU legislation.

What do you consider to be particularly important in the HSEQ sector of the business unit ION?
Haslinger: The ION business unit has set itself the target of meeting equally high standards of quality, environmental protection and safety at all its sites all over the world. It impresses me again and again to see that our employees actually “live” by these standards as a matter of course – the complex nature of our products makes it necessary.

What was the most important HSEQ project in the ION BU in recent years?
Haslinger: REACH is and will certainly remain a major topic but, due to the fact that so far only the monomer components of our polymers have had to be registered, we are not as challenged in this area as other BUs. However, as we have a MTF production, the new GHS Regulation poses a considerable challenge, especially because we have very individual pre-printed packaging.

We recently conducted a HACCP study for our Leverkusen plant. The abbreviation stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points and is enshrined in the German and European food regulations. This study monitors and optimizes risks in each phase of food production and processing and runs through the whole supply chain. We intend to extend this form of risk assessment to our other sites too; in doing so, we are entering into a voluntary commitment, to a certain extent.

What will be the next big HSEQ project for your Business Unit?
Haslinger: It will be our task to integrate our new site at Jhagadia in India into the LANXESS global matrix certificate (ISO 9001/14001), and to initiate the necessary registrations (FDA, NSF, AFFSA, WRAS) for the products manufactured there.

About Xandra Haslinger:
Xandra Haslinger came to Bayer in Leverkusen after studying Business Administration and after various traineeships in Canada and the United States, in 1987. There she worked in the Material Protection Products business unit (BU MPP) in the Marketing Department and was, among other tasks, responsible for North America. From 2004 to 2007 she worked in KPI Management in the Group Function Logistics and Supply Chain. Since 2007, Xandra Haslinger has been the HSEQ and REACH Officer in the ION BU and is responsible for Environmental and Quality Stewardship.

* GHS = Global Harmonized System, global standard for the labelling of dangerous substances and goods