BRAZILIAN NEWS
Medicine or poison? Sérgio Milatias, editor, Revista do Parafuso,
www.revistadoparafuso.com.br NR-12:
The Brazilian Ministry of Labour and Employment has Rule Nº 12, commonly known as NR-12, designed to regulate safety at work. Since 2010 the number of NR-12 provisions that have to be met by manufacturers and users have jumped from 40 to 340 – causing more trouble than solutions.
R
ecently ‘Indústria e Competitividade’, the official magazine of the Federation of Manufacturers of Santa Catarina state published a report about Ciser, in which Brazil’s largest fastener company showed the difficulties
it was experiencing in adapting to this “regulatory overdose”. Facing an amazing 850% increase in its total obligations
any company around the world would, obviously, have major problems in adaptation – something that happened with Ciser, which had to make many rapid changes to its wire drawing machinery amongst many others. Ciser produces more than 6,000 tonnes per month, divided between 27,000 different kinds of fasteners. The company was founded in 1959 and has never had accidents involving the wire drawing section.
However, the historic security procedures adopted by the
company failed to convince an inspection from the Brazilian Ministry, which saw "serious and imminent risk" of accidents in industry and banned the use of seven of the ten wire drawing machines in operation. Left without any alternative Ciser has had to carry out adaptations to machinery and processes costing more than US$500,000. Furthermore, during ten months of drawing machine downtime,
The proposals for revision of NR-12: Temporary cut of obligations for new and used machinery. New deadlines for complaints. Differentiated obligations for manufacturers and users. Differentiated treatment for micro and small enterprises. Definition and characterisation of the limits of "serious and imminent risk". Legal certainty in the purchase of new equipment. Sources: CNI and FIESC
Leasing for cars again
As everybody knows, leasing is a simplified system of credit that works like a rental but with an option to purchase the asset at the end of the payment installments. Its low risk makes this financing cost-effective and attractive to customers.
n Brazil this system was ‘hibernated’ years ago for a series of until now unresolved issues, where the financial institutions found themselves at risk and liable for fines or accidents caused by their customers. This legal uncertainty is now coming to an end and the Supreme Court recently resolved the disputes. For banks this form of financing reduces the risk of default from financing of a car, retaining title to it, and speeding up the process of recovery if that proves necessary. For fastener companies that provides a direct benefit but also the significant indirect benefit in Brazil of increasing sales in the automotive market.
I 38 Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 88 July 2014
the company had to spend a lot of money to buy specific diameters of wire rod at substantially higher cost than it could produce within its own plant and suffer a 30% reduction in productivity. The problem was not unique to wire drawing. It extended to some 700 other machines including two latest generation, German made, automatic presses, which were also considered dangerous during the inspections. Now the authorities have
recognised that NR-12 is impractical, and are preparing a review (details left) to deploy "before it kills the patient with a high dosage of medicine".
Fastener failure causes Hyundai recall in Brazil
From the first week in June Hyundai began recalling more than 26,000 units of the imported SUV model ix35 due to problems with fixations in airbags.
I
t was necessary to inspect the torque of fasteners of airbags mounted on the steering wheel of the vehicle. Due to improper tightening, over time the fasteners could loosen and compromise the eficiency and the safety of
the driver. The call involves just the models imported from Korea, produced from 3rd
January 2011 – 23rd May 2013. This vehicle version is also manufactured by CAOA, the
Brazilian group, in its industrial plant in Anápolis, Goiás state, but these are not included in this recall.
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