Page 144 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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Measurement and Feedback 121

the team’s first indication of “loose bricks” in the safety process will likely
be the occurrence of an incident.
Without measurement and feedback, the warehouse team’s safety per-
formance tends to be recognized only when a significant problem occurs—
a pendulum that swings between either negative recognition or no
recognition. Measurement and feedback help ensure employees are rein-
forced for their diligent work in executing critical serious incident preven-
tion tasks—adding “thanks for a job well done” to work that may otherwise
be perceived as thankless.
Knowing the score and understanding that others appreciate their con-
tribution provides meaning to the work for each member of the team.
Employees see the impact of their efforts, and the resulting pride serves to
sustain performance at high levels. Measurement and feedback systems
provide the information needed for managers to effectively reinforce team
members for sustaining satisfactory performance—or for ensuring correc-
tive action is initiated when needed.
Knowledge of results facilitates the identification of barriers that may
impede performance. Knowing that improvements will be measured and
that feedback will be provided to superiors provides incentive for managers
to take on the difficult challenge of removing performance barriers. When
the capability does not exist for monitoring and communicating improved
results, few managers are willing to allocate the time, resources, and per-
sonal energy required for barrier bashing.

Elevating the Visibility of Critical Work

The critical work to sustain incident-free operations tends to be low vis-
ibility, with neither the actual performance of the work nor the status of the
work typically visible to management. It is a paradox that this low-visibil-
ity work has profound implications for the company’s highest visibility per-
formance indicators—profits, customer service, company image, employee
satisfaction, and safety. Consider the catastrophic incident at a petrochemi-
cal facility that resulted in 23 fatalities, together with loss of more than $1.5
billion in property damage and business interruption. This catastrophic in-
cident was directly linked to apparent deficiencies in one of the low-visi-
bility tasks critical to preventing serious incidents—that of effectively
isolating piping systems to eliminate the potential for flammable releases
during maintenance work. 2,3
Similarly, a $21-million loss due to fire in an Iowa warehouse resulted
from deficiencies in the basic tasks of controlling smoking and providing
4
properly designed trash receptacles. Success in preventing serious inci-