Page 125 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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Establishing

Performance

Standards

Individuals have varying ideas on what it takes to satisfactorily exe-
cute a job. Such variations can be observed in the way individuals perform
tasks—maintaining a yard, studying for an exam, or performing
lockout/tagout procedures. When proper execution of tasks is critical to
preventing incidents having the potential for catastrophic consequences,
an organization would be negligent to entrust its destiny to the whims of
individual opinions regarding satisfactory performance. A consensus on
acceptable standards of performance is needed within the organization.
Standards must support the execution of critical work in a manner that pro-
vides a full margin of safety while utilizing resources effectively.
Performance standards are a prerequisite to maintaining the operating dis-
cipline necessary for incident-free operations.
What are performance standards, and what role do they play in the
prevention of serious incidents? Performance standards are a means of
documenting and communicating how tasks should be performed and
what results need to be accomplished—they serve to define excellence.
Performance standards may be either explicit or implicit, with explicit
standards typically documented in written form—missions, goals, action
plans, policies, and procedures. Inferred or implicit standards are equally
as important in defining acceptable performance. These standards are

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