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The Journey of Safety Continuous Improvement through Analytics
August 20, 2013 12:12:00 PM

A good friend of mine, a safety professional, often tells me that his effectiveness as an ESH professional at his organization is coming to an end.  You see, the company he serves has seen a fantastic improvement and they are nearing a zero-injury state.  In my friend’s mind, his usefulness to the business for which he works is extinguishing as they approach achieving sustaining zero injuries.  My friend envisions himself as a craftsman skilled in the art of safety culture repair, a journeyman gifted in rehabilitating organizations that suffer from unbridled risk acceptance and careless safety practices.  He repairs these problems and once they are fixed, in his mind, his job is complete – time to move on!

“…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”- C.S. Lewis  

My friend is not alone in this fix-it, self-interpretation.  Through the years, I have crossed paths with many ESH Professionals that operate under this same save-the-day-and-move-on, task-completion mindset.  Admittedly, I also am a task-oriented fellow that thrives on finishing a job.  I gain much satisfaction crossing the finish line; however, I also wholeheartedly embrace the notion that there is always room for improvement.     

My friends, the journey for safety improvement never ends.  There is always a way to better protect the people, assets and wellbeing of the organizations we serve.  We accept the idea of continuous improvement when we talk about production, quality, distribution and other business categories.  So why not accept the idea of continuous safety improvement?  I often hear organizations boldly declare, “Zero injuries are our goal!”  When I hear this, I often wonder if finality is really achieved with zero injuries.  I worry more if an organization loses focus and relaxes effort because they feel they’ve arrived at their zero-injury destination.  I say there’s much more to accomplish beyond zero injuries and continuous improvement is still possible. Truth be told, yesterday’s safety enclosure that is surrounded by a wall built with zero injuries hides far more interesting and exciting risk avoidance and business-protecting possibilities like forecasting, statistical analysis and predictive modeling that comprise a vast, unending landscape known as safety analytics.  It’s high time we look past that zero-injury wall, embrace the idea of safety continuous improvement and allow safety analytics to guide us on our journey. 

Safety analytics – are we there yet?  Analytics is actually not a new concept.  In fact, it’s been around for years.  Researchers, engineers and scientists engage in analytics through their work which often involves thoroughly examining mountains of data.  In the safety realm, collecting data is not an unfamiliar practice either.  However, safety analytics is relatively new.  If your organization is like many I encounter, I’m sure you are familiar with safety inspections, near miss/hits, first aid and injury reports.  You may be involved in behavior observations, Industrial hygiene monitoring, measuring employee participation and satisfaction, security reports, the weather and much, much more.  All this data is material that can be applied in an analytical way.  But what benefit do we gain from applying analytics to the data we already collect? 

With normal data collection (incident reports, injury/illness rates & near misses) and simple analysis (charting and graphing) you begin to answer the question, “what happened?”  When data is examined analytically with statistical analysis, forecasting and predictive modeling you begin to ponder deeper questions like: Why is this happening?  Are there trends linking antecedents to outcomes?  and What is going to happen?  The aforementioned three questions are a roadmap guiding practitioners to realms where trends in data create a roadmap leading to wiser risk evaluation and decision making.  What happened – or the “lagging indicators” only offer a one dimensional snapshot in time that tells where you’ve been – not as useful as the roadmap!   

Recently a group of safety practitioners at a large manufacturing facility gathered together to examine some disturbing data.  At that meeting, it was reported that at an intersection where pedestrians and mobile equipment cross paths that plant rules were being violated.  Observations at that plant revealed lift truck operators were ignoring stop signs and not using their horns when maneuvering through the intersection.  Additionally, pedestrians ignored stop signs as well.  The potential danger was obvious to all in the room.  One person in attendance began calculating how many times forklifts cross that intersection which amounted to thousands of times a week.  Likewise, he figured thousands of people crossed that intersection each week.  The probability of a forklift hitting a pedestrian was very high and the severity of the potential injury was devastating.  All in attendance agreed that this issue must be dealt with immediately.   

Despite the obvious dangerous scenario and solidarity that these observations highlighted a potentially fatal injury, one person in attendance asked an unpopular question that caught everyone off guard.  He asked, “How many times in our history have people been hurt because forklift operators failed to stop and sound their horn at this intersection?”  The answer…  Going several years back, records indicated that nobody had been hurt at this intersection.  There was silence in the room as they all reweighed the risk.  In the end, unanimously they all decided to aggressively address the issue anyway deciding plant rules needed to be enforced.  What happened in that meeting was a group of people engaged in analyzing real data from different angles, asking challenging questions and using probability to predict future risk.  They were journeying down an unchartered path using analytics for their roadmap!   

In the end, this plant’s perfect-safety-record destination at that intersection where forklifts and people crossed paths boasted no injuries but revealed the ugly truth that real danger lurked unnoticed.  The record of what happened told a story of fantastic safety success; however, observations mingled with probability uncovered real danger.  Through analytics this group of safety professionals divined an opportunity to improve in an area that hid danger behind the wall of zero injuries.  Safety continuous improvement was identified by enforcing plant rules and risk was ultimately reduced.

Can an organization find improvement if they venture past the wall of zero injuries?  Absolutely, if that organization chooses to travel down a path guided by statistical analysis, forecasting and predictive modeling – safety analytics.  Further, if they explore what’s happening by looking into areas and conditions thought safe using behavior observations and inspections the vast landscape of risk reduction will be realized.  The safety professional that finally arrives at their zero-injuries destination sitting atop the mountain they just climbed pondering other mountains may discover he or she has only reached the peak of the foothills.  The zero injuries wall blocking their view hides the true mountain left unexplored.  Let’s continue beyond that wall and journey toward greater risk reduction and continuous improvement with safety analytics, shall we?

Safe travels and live safety!