Establishing a Safety Metrics Program

Developing effective leadership can provide the following benefits (Simmons 1997,273)  

Effective leaders have understood that their job is to lead a process of systematic organizational transformation. To be fully effective, this process of organizational transformation, must tackle three areas (Simmons 1997,273)  

In pursuing these goals, leaders will focus their organization on three key activities 

The development of performance measures requires a collaborative effort from various levels of the organization, as well as personnel from different departments, such as safety, environmental, finance, personnel, maintenance, and engineering. The inputs the various departments can provide include appropriate benchmark levels, validity of performance measures, data needs (such as methods for obtaining data, available data, and data collection means), audit procedures, and evaluation techniques. Input from the various departments can be useful in determining available sources so that duplication does not result in wasted time and money. 

Collaboration does not have to end with personnel and departments within an organization. When establishing performance measures, techniques used by other facilities within the company or industry can lend valuable insight into methods already in use. These techniques may be available from the companies or from professional organizations. The positive results from a collaborative effort include minimal duplication of work and a broader perspective of what should be measured as well as the steps involved in collecting and analyzing the information. 

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The safety professional has many tools and techniques available to establish a safety metrics program, collect data, evaluate performance, and make decisions based on... 

This book provides safety practitioners with information and tools that can be used to develop and implement a safety metrics program. Techniques are presented to assist the safety professional in implementing a safety metrics program, establishing performance measures, analyzing data, and determining the need for corrective action. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration s VPP Program criteria can be used to establish safety performance measures for the workplace. The requirements are activity-based, which means they are easily applied to a monitoring and assessment program. The safety metrics could consist of monitoring and recording whether the activities have been conducted. 

The metric of audit scores is a proactive measurement of safety performance. Audits are used to measure the safety performance of a school against established organizational standards or government regulations. Questions are asked related to each aspect of a safety program being audited. The responses to these questions on the audit are then translated into a score that can serve as the metric that is used to measure performance. Types of safety audits cau include ... 

ISA 84.01/IEC 61511 uses an order of magnitude metric, the SIL, to establish the necessary performance. A hazard and risk analysis is used to identify the required safety functions and risk reduction for specified hazardous events. Safety functions allocated to the SIS are SIFs the allocated risk reduction is related to the SIL. The design and operating basis is developed to ensure that the SIS meets the required SIL. Field data are collected through operational and mechanical integrity program activities to assess actual SIS performance. When the required performance is not met, action shordd be taken to close the gap, ensuring safe and reliable operation. 

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