TIPS (trigger an IIF paradigm shift).

Abstract

CHALLENGE: New Mexico Corporate Services (NMCS) recordable injuries have been averaging 2-4 per year for the last 5 years with no statistical improvement. However, we believe all NM employees must go home incident and injury free every day and just as healthy as they came to work. In addition, we have received feedback from several sources, that indicates some employees are reluctant to report injuries. These indicators showed us that continuing our current strategies, making incremental improvement and changes, would not give us the improvement desired. We needed a paradigm shift to get everyone completely engaged in the IIF (Incident & Injury Free) culture, in order to achieve true IIF results. METHODS/STRATEGIES: We formed a small (3-person) taskforce consisting of safety representatives from EHS, Site Services and CS Operations. We reviewed 5 years worth of data to determine what was injuring our people. We also decided to review all injuries, not simply those classified as recordable by OSHA standards. First we identified the types of injury information needed to get a true picture of our safety issues. We analyzed IRB (Incident Review Board) data showing us the following factors and whether any of them contributed to the injury: - Date - Incident Description - Severity - Root Cause - Type of Injury - Season - Work Group/Shift - Area - Improper evaluation of hazard - Inadequate work procedures - Incorrect Mental Model - Inadequate PPE Requirement - Failure to Follow or Unaware of PPE Requirement - Shortcut or Schedule Pressure - Last or First Day of Shift or Adjacent to Holiday - OT - Aggravate Existing Condition - Inadequate Training or Passdown - Experience in Task - Corrective Action Taken - Overall Quality of Response. Once this information was collected for all injuries in an Excel file, we graphed it several ways to help reveal trends: Shift 7 had double the injuries of shift 5. Night shift injuries were relatively high but lower than Shift 7. Shift 5 had no severe (recordable) injuries. Biggest total injury type was ergonomic. Biggest recordable injury type (58%) was cuts/lacerations. Chemical exposure and inhalations resulted in no recordables. Biggest root cause category was behavioral. Biggest behavioral root cause was "Failure to Evaluate Hazards". Biggest administrative controls root cause was "Inadequate Procedures". Biggest engineering controls root cause was "Unrecognized Workplace Hazard". Majority of injuries occurred in Spring/Summer which accounted for 86% of recordables. Response was inadequate or poor for 25% of injuries. Number of injuries by workgroup were about equal. Work area injuries were mostly in the CUB and Subfab but CUB injuries favored cuts/lacerations while Subfab favored ergonomic injuries. These learnings and gaps were used to develop our New Mexico Site Safety Action Plan for 2005. It has also been used by individual managers and supervisors in their day-to-day business meetings, activities, and communications, for a more focused IIF message and effort. RESULTS: [graph: see text]. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS: Challenges are different amongst shifts. Shift culture may be stronger than workgroup culture. Work areas pose different challenges that all should be aware of and prepared for. We should prepare ourselves for challenges posed by the Spring and Summer seasons as well. We should be aware of and prepare for the different challenges and cultures characteristic of each shift. Supervisors need to spend more time in the field with their people to help them address safety issues and help make IIF a more consistent component of daily workgroup culture. Each site should analyze their data and look for their unique safety challenges. This will allow customized, focused action plans that meet the unique needs of each site.