Page 43 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company
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The Barriers to
Improvement
Sustaining serious incident-free operation for the long-term has
proven to be elusive for many companies. Given that most incidents could
have been prevented through the use of fundamental safe practices, why
have companies not been more successful in preventing serious incidents?
It is apparent that numerous barriers exist in sustaining incident free
operations—barriers that many organizations have been unable to over-
come. Maintaining the constancy of purpose needed has proven difficult.
Ever-shifting forces continually shape organizational priorities and the
process for allocating resources. These forces often favor highly visible
projects with a payback perceived to be quick, rather than less-visible ini-
tiatives designed to ensure continuing financial success through the pre-
vention of high-consequence accidents that are often perceived to be low
probability events. As a result of the focus on shorter-term interests, the
priority and resources for work required to prevent serious incidents may
over time be relegated to a level where excellence is difficult to sustain.
Organizational barriers that inhibit serious incident prevention include:
A focus on today’s problems
Limited employee involvement
Inadequate measurement and feedback
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