Metrics safety observations

At weekly team meetings, review team safety metric performance against target. Metrics could include number of safety observations, safety improvements, or safety JSAs completed. 

Target a number of safety improvements, safety observations, and JSA that will be completed monthly. Review metric results every week at team meeting. 

A process safety metric is an observable measure that provides insights into a concept —process safety — that is difficult to measure directly. 

Commonly reported near misses include such events as exceeding operating limits, a release of a chemical or other hazardous substance that does not meet the threshold for a process safety incident metric, activation of relief valves, interlocks, or ruptured disks. Companies may establish near-miss metrics based on the specifics of their operation, based on their observations of frequent upsets or failures, or to track and correct observed unsafe practices or behaviors. 

Advertising successes of the process safety improvement effort demonstrates that improvement is possible. Well-crafted stories also explain the benefits that accrue to everyone in the organization. Of particular interest are stories where a process safety weakness was observed, possibly during a process safety audit, and an improvement effort corrected the identified weakness before it could manifest into an accident. Metrics can validate such improvements. Another example is improved reliability from timely maintenance of safety devices as demonstrated by metrics that educate personnel not only about the hazards, but also about the importance of reliable safety systems in managing those hazards. 

Once the observations have been recorded, the data will be added to arrive at a total number of behaviors for each category. In this example, there were a total of six safe behaviors and two at-risk behaviors observed. Of the eight total behaviors that occurred, it was found that six were considered to be safe, so this task measured as 75% safe. Rather than focusing on failures, such as are measured by injury rates, this metric provides a proactive positive measurement of safety performance. Observations can be accumulated in a database or spreadsheet and measured over time with the goal of increasing the level of safe performance of jobs that occur. 

Most companies have been so focused on observations, targets and policies and lagging indicators snch as OSHA recordable rates and lost-time metrics that they ve lost a handle on the very safety culture that keeps productivity high and workers alive and healthy. The engagement process in safety and health is best accomplished through a serious culture... 

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