Promoting safety observation programs

Based on these results, Du Pont refined its approach to safety into its present Safety Training Observation Program (STOP). Du Pont promotes STOP extensively both within and outside the company. STOP involves a process of layered safety audits in which each layer of management conducts a regular safety audit, typically every week. A manager enters an area and finds its superintendent then they conduct a safety audit of that area. On a different week, the superintendent chooses an area supervisor and they conduct a safety audit. Further, all management personnel conduct a formal audit each week in one of the work areas for which they are responsible while also conducting informal observations of both safety practices and safe work conditions at all times. 

Moreover, OU s Department Chairs found their Laboratory Safety Instruction Evaluations (even those which were unfavorable) useful, and were openly appreciative of the baseline (and subsequent) information derived therein. Finally, a more interesting observation has been that it appears it is the Lab Safety Evaluations rather than the LSS Program itself, which may be serving to motivate and modify laboratory safety instruction. This (hypothesized) scenario is depicted in Table VIII. Thus, while a direct link to the actual LSS Program cannot conclusively be determined, we have successfully promoted (however indirectly) the inclusion of critical laboratory safety instruction into laboratory curricula campus-wide. 

---