News & Information Blog

When you use leading indicators to assess the health of your Safety Culture you stop reacting to, and start preventing, accidents.  Our blog this week will walk you through how easy it is to move from reaction to prevention with Simple Safety Coach (SSC).

A Day in the Life of a Company with Simple Safety Coach

On his way back to his work-station from lunch Floyd noticed that a blue plastic 55 gallon chemical drum looked kinda buldgy, like it was under pressure.  When he got to his work area, he grabbed the SSC tablet, logged in and entered a Safety Observation labeled Imminent Chemical Hazard!  He moved the check mark from Praise to Prevention and entered the Site, Department, and the location and description of the drum.  In less than a minute was back at his work station.  If the use of Iphones were permitted he could have taken and attached some pictures but he didn’t think it was worth the extra time to go back with the tablet to take them.

When he clicks "Add Safety Observation" an email is sent to the Safety Manager who was just on her way into the Safety Committee’s 15 minute Power meeting.  The Committee consists of three members with a year long commitment and four employees volunteering for specific investigations of interest.   After a seven minute review of the status of ongoing investigations and upcoming training, there is a three minute review of Safety Observations submitted either by submissions of Praise or Prevention reports or forms automatically submitted due to failed conditions. 

The members divvy up managing the investigations with the Safety Manager selecting the new Near Miss Accident reports and the Imminent Chemical Hazard! Report.  Instead of posting a notice of the new investigations looking for volunteers on the Safety News banner the Safety Manager goes directly to the location of the chemical drum.

Grabbing the red and white chemical hazard tape as she leaves the conference room she walks to the building/Site where the chemical drum is located.  It is showing a build up of pressure.  Pulling the Safety Data Sheet, SDS, up on her tablet she noticed the storage conditions say to keep away from light and heat and the storage container is on a pallet that is in direct sunlight from a windows behind the storage pallet.  Not good.  Glancing through the rest of the SDS she sees the is no warning about the chemical becoming shock sensitive.

Half an hour later the drum has been moved to the coolest area in the building until the swelling in the drum and the Safety Manager has updated the Safety Observation form and moved on to the near miss sites.

So, what just happened?

1. A potential explosion was prevented.
   1. Turns out that another Building/Site had the same hazard and, due to transparency of data, was able to prevent an explosion there as well.
2. Floyd got 5 participation points for reporting a Safety Observation.
3. Everyone at the Power Meeting will get 3 points added to their Profile for participating in the Safety Committee, as a volunteer or member.
4. Part of the investigation is estimating the cost of doing nothing vs the cost of prevention.

Each of the above actions is automatically included in a graph on the Summary Dashboard creating an ongoing Leading Indicator profile of the health of Floyd’s Safety Culture.  (Oh, and he got extra points for preventing an explosion that could have killed employees and left a crater and demolished wall.)