An article on "EHS Today titled", “Caterpillar: Using Leading Indicators to Create World-Class Safety” recaps an interview with two Caterpillar executives who explained how they were able to successfully transition to a culture that utilizes leading indicators for safety.
According to the executives at Caterpillar, “… traditional metrics can help companies tell the score at the end of the game, but they don’t help employers understand the strengths and weaknesses of their safety efforts and cannot help managers predict future success.”
By utilizing a Safety Strategic Improvement Process (SIP) that emphasized leading indicators of safety, they saw an 85% reduction of injuries and $450 million in direct/indirect cost savings. According to the article, the critical elements of the SIP included:
- Enterprise-wide statement of safety culture.
- Global process, tools and metrics.
- Top-down leadership of and engagement with the process.
- Clearly defined and linked roles and responsibilities.
- Clearly defined accountability.
- Consistent methods establishing targets and reporting performance.
- Consistent criteria for prioritizing issues and aligning resources.
- Recognition for positive behavior and performance.
Conclusion:
To improve the safety performance at your facility, you can use a site specific Near Miss Reporting System which has a combination of leading and lagging indicators.
When using leading and lagging indicators, it’s important to make your metrics based on the "IMPACT". For example: don’t just track the number and attendance of a daily JSA, safety meeting and training sessions. Measure the impact of first aid, close calls and near miss events using a site specific Near Miss Reporting System.
A near miss is an "Golden Opportunity" for your organization to learn from pass mistakes by determining the number of minor injuries per day giving your organization a competitive advantage. Now a Near Miss becomes a key learning objective and focus of the daily JSA meeting or tool box talk to include a field quiz training.
Now over to you …
What metrics do you use to measure your facility’s safety performance?
We found the leading and lagging indicators developed by the CCPS and later made into an industry standard as the best set for utility and comparison. I would note that "Near misses" are not only (or always) learning objectives, but more "leading" in that they improve the general safety awareness of the individuals. Ideally, the number of reported near misses should remain constant (or increase), BUT the severity of each report should continually decrease. Repetitive incidents demonstrate a lack of LEARNING from the 'lessons'.
In order to measure not only the safety performance but also to evaluate the effectiveness of leading indicators used and the effectiveness of the execution you must run correlations of leading against lagging indicators. As a rule-of-thumb we can say that when leading indicators increase lagging indicators decrease. Increased leading indicators targets should correlate, over time, with decreased lagging indicators values; this correlation best documents Organization’s continuous improvement. The sensitivity of the outcomes (as measured through lagging indicators) to the various leading indicators can be difficult to determine. If you keep achieving leading targets but lagging results are not improving, that means either you’re measuring the wrong things or you have procedures issues. Otherwise if you are not achieving leading targets but lagging results are improving that means either you’re measuring the wrong things or incidental results (by chance) take place. By comparing leading indicators to lagging indicators you can determine their effectiveness, and you can see whether they’re driving the right behaviour and reducing risk. This, according to my opinion, is the best way to find the appropriate leading and lagging indicators for your organization which measure the overall effectiveness of organization's safety performance.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Entomology
- Resistance