Case Study: Safety

Client
A leading North American food and beverage manufacturer.

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The Challenge
The manufacturer's warehousing division had persistently moderate injury rates and was in danger of missing safety goals. Traditional safety programs were in place but they were not preventing incidents.

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Our Approach

First, we consider that every problem is also a safety problem. Safety problems, in the presence of an already existing traditional or standard safety program, require non-standard solutions. Any time non-standard solutions are deployed, the risk of errors and injuries increases. Because of this risk, we deemed all operational data relevant when evaluating the potential fixes. We did not feel that relying solely on siloed injury or near-miss data was sufficient.

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Second, we recognize that the conditions that increase the risk of error also increase the risk of injury (in addition to many other problems). As a consequence, we treat every incidence of rushing, frustration, fatigue, complacency, and habit disruption as a near-miss. To prevent all of these near misses, we began a systemic examination of all relevant factors to evaluate the root causes.

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After a thorough examination, we redesigned the entire safety function using the above safety philosophy and applied our 5-step approach across a series of front-line teams, maintaining a sharp focus on the highest-risk areas of the warehouse.

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• Analyzed all incident, near-miss, and audit data to identify the vital few processes and tasks driving the majority of injuries.
   

• Conducted detailed process and risk mapping sessions directly with the operators who performed the work every day.
   

• Built practical, frontline-owned audit protocols and preventive controls that addressed the root causes of deviation.
   

• Implemented the new protocols and preventative controls, including training the safety team and supervisors across the organization. 
   

• Executed daily one-on-one audits through the safety team that verified knowledge, understanding, and actual adherence.
   

• Repeated the process as new information became available.
   

Results
After a short period of time the organization achieved substantial improvement on its safety goals.  Roughly 6 months into the new year, they were on track for a perfect "no recordable" year.

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Even more remarkable, however, was what happened within the team.

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The operators and supervisors who participated in the process-mapping and audit design became so enthusiastic about how quickly problems were being solved that they began teaching the methodology to each other. Within weeks we observed multiple self-formed teams autonomously creating their own process maps, identifying gaps, and developing new audits — all on their own time and initiative. Employees started bringing completed process maps to the safety team, asking for the audits to be implemented because “this process actually fixes things.”

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What began as a targeted safety intervention evolved into a self-sustaining culture of proactive problem-solving.