Page 161 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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134 Serious Incident Prevention

performance that deteriorates to levels below the baseline. This is accom-
plished by assigning appropriate values to performance levels 0, 1, and 2,
as illustrated by Figure 12-7.
The design of the matrix provides the capability for scores continuing
to increase even after the goals documented in column 7 are reached. This
capability is provided by recording stretch goals in column 10 and then en-
tering values for performance levels 8 and 9 in the appropriate columns. The
team designing the matrix has flexibility in assigning these numbers, but
one approach for determining values between the goal (column 7) and
stretch goal (column 10) is to establish increments based on 33 percent of
the difference between the values of columns 7 and 10. For example, the
difference between levels 7 and 10 for “Timeliness of Corrective Action” is
15 days, and applying the 33-percent guideline results in increments of 5—
in this case, a value of 25 for column 8 and 20 for column 9. The matrix
with all values entered is illustrated in Figure 12-8.
The matrix is now fully developed and ready for use. For illustration
purposes, we will assume that a hypothetical company, Smith Industries,
Inc. has developed a safety performance index matrix and is utilizing it to
monitor performance on a monthly basis. Let’s assume Smith Industries has
completed six months of using the system, and performance levels for the
most recent month were as follows:

Leadership Training: 78 percent complete
Audit Scores: 92 percent
Timeliness of Corrective Action: 52 days
Volume of Spills: 75 lbs.
Recordable injury rate: 5.2 per 200,000 hours worked

To determine the monthly score, the first step is to record the monthly
achievement for each key performance area in the “Value” column. For ex-
ample, training is 78 percent complete, and a 78 is recorded in the value col-
umn for Leadership Training. The next step is to determine the
corresponding performance level for each key measure by identifying the
highest performance level fully achieved. In determining this level, no fa-
vorable rounding of numbers should be performed. For example, since the
volume of spills has been reduced to 75 lbs., performance level 7 (100 lbs.)
has been surpassed, but level 8 (70 lbs.) has not yet been achieved.
Therefore, for “volume of spills” the actual achievement of 75 is recorded
in the value column, the 100 in column 7 is circled, and the corresponding
performance level of 7 is recorded in the Level column for use in calculat-
ing the score. Figure 12-9 illustrates entries of monthly performance data in