Page 47 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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The Barriers to Improvement 25

Management at all levels must continuously be aware of the potential
for imprudent actions initiated to help ensure a high bonus plan payout.
Despite pressures that may be created by bonus plans, managers must con-
tinuously look at the big picture and maintain a long-term perspective.
Managers should be diligent in communicating the importance of serious
incident prevention throughout the organization, and personal actions must
be congruent with the message communicated.

Limited Line Organization Ownership

It’s well recognized that achieving and maintaining outstanding safety
performance is dependent upon line organization ownership. Acceptance by
the line organization as full owner of the serious incident prevention process
may be complicated by several factors including: (1) lack of line organiza-
tion involvement in developing the process, and (2) dependence upon staff
groups and contractors to conduct a significant portion of the critical work.
Contractors or internal staff groups, for example, may be utilized for spe-
cialized work, such as equipment inspections, instrument calibrations, cor-
rosion monitoring, and relief valve tests.
When these conditions exist, line organizations may take a passive, par-
tial ownership position rather than assuming a broader, more active role.
When ownership is passive, members of the line organization team may
lack the motivation to implement prompt corrective action when needed.
When the staff group responsible for inspecting and testing the thickness of
pipes and vessels falls behind schedule, only active, committed owners will
take the initiative to resolve the problem. Rather than feeling a sense of ur-
gency to take action, passive owners look at such situations as someone
else’s problem to solve. When execution of critical work is dependent upon
other groups, active intervention by the line organization may often be re-
quired to ensure the work is satisfactorily performed.

Limited Personal Experience

An individual’s priorities are heavily shaped by past experiences.
Managers often obtain experience relatively quickly in areas of responsibil-
ity such as product quality, customer service, and prevention of common in-
juries. Incidents affecting these areas tend to be frequent enough to
introduce even relatively new managers to the consequences that occur
when deficiencies are allowed to exist. However, the same managers may
have no direct experience with serious incidents due to their inherent low