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Ebook PDF Safety Metrics Tools and Techniques For Measuring Performance Third Edition Ebook PDF Version Full Chapter
Ebook PDF Safety Metrics Tools and Techniques For Measuring Performance Third Edition Ebook PDF Version Full Chapter
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" Contents
1! Introduction! 1
Current Trends in Safety Performance Measurement" 1
A Performance Program Framework" 3
Summary" 3
Chapter Questions" 4
2! Managing Safety Performance! 5
Safety Performance Management Programs" 5
The OECD Safety Performance Management Framework" 6
Safety Performance Program Frameworks" 8
The Performance Measurement Process" 9
Summary" 10
Chapter Questions" 10
3 ! Safety Goals and Objectives! 11
Establishing Effective Goals" 11
Establishing Safety Objectives" 13
The Balanced Scorecard Approach" 13
Benchmarking" 14
Defining Safety Benchmarks" 15
Benchmarking Process" 16
Continuous Improvement Process" 17
Benchmarking Pitfalls" 18
Summary" 19
iii
iv CONTENTS
Chapter Questions" 19
4! Developing Safety Performance Indicators! 21
Safety Performance Indicators" 21
Uses for Safety Performance Indicators" 22
Outcomes Measures" 22
Types of Performance Indicators" 23
Categories of Performance indicators" 24
Lagging Indicators" 24
Current Indicators" 25
Leading Indicators" 25
Tying Performance Indicators to Goals and Objectives" 25
Using Root Cause Analysis to Identify Performance Indicators" 26
Benefits of Safety Performance Indicators" 26
Shortcomings of Safety Performance indicators" 27
Summary" 27
Chapter Questions" 27
5! Defining Safety Metrics! 29
Linking Safety Metrics to Performance Indicators" 30
Safety Metrics for Leading Performance Indicators" 30
Safety Metrics for Trailing Performance Indicators" 31
OSHA Based Incidence Rates" 32
OSHA’s Days Away, Restricted, and Transferred (DART) Rate" 33
OSHA’s Days Away from Work Injuries and Illness (DAFWII) Case Rate" 33
OSHA’s Lost Work Day Injury and Illness (LWDII) Rate Calculations" 34
OSHA's Gravity-Based Penalty System" 34
Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Safety and Health Statistics" 35
Bureau of Labor Statistics Handbook of Methods" 36
Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses" 37
Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries" 37
DOE Occupational Injury/Illness Indices" 37
Six Sigma's Capability Index" 39
The Capability Index" 39
Applying Six Sigma Process Capability to Safety" 40
Workers’ Compensation Trailing Indicator Metrics" 41
Experience Modification Rate" 42
Elements of the EMR Formula" 43
Insurance Loss Ratios" 43
Expense Ratios" 44
Combined Ratios" 44
CONTENTS v
Summary" 44
Chapter Questions" 45
6! The Focus on Leading Indicators! 47
Leading Indicators and Safety Performance" 47
Relationships between Leading Indicators and Safety Performance" 48
Developing Leading Indicators" 49
SMART Criteria" 49
Summary" 50
Chapter Questions" 50
7! Implementing the Safety Performance Program! 53
Leadership" 54
Accountability" 55
Collaborative Process" 55
Defining Organizational Processes" 56
Measurement" 56
Resources and Documentation" 57
Data Collection" 57
Coordinating Measures" 58
Continuous Improvement Process" 58
Summary" 59
Chapter Questions" 59
8! Statistical Methods in Safety Metrics! 61
Data Formats" 63
Nominal Data" 63
Ordinal Data" 64
Interval Data" 64
Ratio Data" 65
Recoding Data" 65
Strength of the Data Formats" 65
Descriptive Statistics" 66
Measures of Central Tendency" 66
Mean" 67
Median" 67
Mode" 68
Measures of Variability" 68
Range" 68
Variance" 69
Variance Calculation" 70
Standard Deviation" 70
vi CONTENTS
Glossary! 211
References! 221
About the Author! 227
1 " Introduction
Measuring and controlling performance are part of the foundation of the business man-
agement process. Setting goals, identifying the activities to reach those goals and evaluat-
ing performance are common in virtually all industries. The control and improvement of
performance requires measuring current performance against an established acceptable
performance level and where needed changes in activities to close the gaps that may exist
between the acceptable level of performance and the current levels. The expectations of
safety professionals in the business world are no different than those of others. Over the
past decade, there has been more of a push to incorporate performance measures into the
safety activities in organizations. While in some instances, the direct link between accept-
able performance and activities is very apparent, it can be more challenging when it
comes to preventing accidents and injuries. Thus, safety professionals need a framework
by which they can control and manage the safety activities of the organization.
In the past, measuring safety performance relied on measuring only a few trailing indica-
tors such as the number of lost workdays or the amount of money spent on workers
compensation claims. This translates to after-the-fact hazard detection, which (like out-
dated quality programs based on inspecting defects at the end of a process) does not
identify organizational errors—the true causes of accidents. This measuring safety per-
formance by counting the number of people hurt or the number of days away from work
focused on end results and did not take into account safety performance activities.
1
2 INTRODUCTION
"Safety excellence requires daily proactive intervention by line managers and supervi-
sors. This proactive intervention is usually a missing link that can only be corrected when
the system holds managers, supervisors, and executives accountable" (Petersen 2000, 19).
Traditional approaches to benchmarking risk management and safe work performance
with incident rate reduction have failed to provide a strong connection between program
causes and direct factors influencing risk and loss frequency (Huang, Y & Brubaker, S.
2006, 36).
Today, the methods for managing safety performance have greatly expanded and im-
proved. Performance measurement tools and techniques have become more common-
place in a variety of industries including manufacturing, transportation, and chemical.
Still with these advances in performance measurement, the safety professional still finds
challenges in defining safety performance, tying performance indicators to safety activi-
ties, finding the balance between measurements and reaching performance goals.
Safety metrics and methods for measuring the safety culture in the organization have
gained importance. Safety professionals have come to understand the impact the safety
culture has upon all other aspects of the safety program and the degree to which the
safety culture can influence or hinder the other aspects of the program. Dan Peterson
concludes that leadership and culture are the two most important subjects to consider
with respect to what must be present to achieve safety excellence (Petersen 2004, 28).
With this awareness regarding the importance of organizational culture and its rela-
tionship to positive SHE performance is growing as is the need for measuring its influ-
ences upon the organization as they relate to safety performance. As a result, techniques
and methods for measuring the safety culture should be part of any safety performance
program. As with the struggles found with other performance measures, the safety pro-
fessional must determine which metrics are indicative of a successful safety culture, what
constitutes acceptable performance levels, and if gaps exist between current levels and
acceptable levels, what should be done to narrow these gaps.
Today’s safety professional has moved beyond the standard measurement of safety
performance in terms of the number of accidents or injuries and recordable injury and
illness rates. More sophisticated techniques that involve safety performance measure-
ment systems, ongoing tracking of results and continual improvement processes have
replaced the early measurements. While today’s safety metrics still include accident and
illness performance, they also encompass behavior-based Safety, safety program imple-
mentation performance, and insurance costs and losses.
Safety performance is now measured with the same tools and techniques common to
quality measures of other aspects in the organization. Control charts, run charts, and Pa-
reto diagrams can be used to track and monitor safety performance, establish trends, and
evaluate program performance against accepted tolerances. Benchmarking against other
high performers has become a trend in industry not only for production goals but also for
safety.
INTRODUCTION 3
In today's global economy, safety performance and its measurement have also become
global. The International Organization for Standardization’s ISO standards have become
an integral part of many organizations' safety management philosophy. The ISO 9000
family of standards and 14000 environmental management standards are global frame-
works for many industries’ quality and environmental performance standards. These
standards have become the means by which organizations have incorporated safety into
production and management strategies.
In Europe, the European Community has adopted a number of performance standards
that serve as voluntary quality and environmental standards for its members. The Euro-
pean Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) promotes and rewards organizations
that adhere to their excellence model for quality (European Union 2015). Accompanying
these standards are safety and environmental performance measures that directly impact
the overall quality of the product. These standards have also laid the foundation for
documentation of performance standards and continual improvement process.
This book presents a framework for the safety performance program which can be tai-
lored to any organization. The framework consists of setting an organizational safety
goal, identifying the objectives necessary to meet the goal, and developing performance
indicators with their associated safety metrics. Utilizing a continuous improvement proc-
ess with this framework allows the safety professional a means by which they can collect
data, analyze it, and compare the results to the desired program objectives and goals.
This framework also provides the safety professional with a series of checks and balances
to ensure that in each step of the process, performance measures are tied to the organiza-
tional goals.
Techniques presented in this book provide the safety professional with the tools neces-
sary to complete the data analysis and identify programmatic changes necessary to attain
the performance goals and objectives.
SUMMARY
The safety professional has long been faced with trying to answer the question "How
are we performing with regard to safety?" Tools and techniques that are often used in
fields as diverse as business management, insurance, and psychology can also be applied
to industrial safety. This book provides a framework for developing a management pro-
gram designed to apply these techniques and identify activities that can be used to con-
tinually improve safety performance. Information contained in this book will provide the
safety professional with:
4 INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER QUESTIONS
Safety performance management programs encompass the tools and techniques for guid-
ing the safety activities of an organization. While the ways in which an organization de-
fines safety performance can vary greatly, the underlying principles of setting perform-
ance goals, measuring safety activities, analyzing results, and making necessary changes
are very similar. The safety profession, like other disciplines, must be able to determine if
their programs are making a positive impact upon the organization, confirm whether
they are meeting their safety goals, and communicate the status of the safety performance
to the organization.
Safety performance management programs consist of determining what to measure,
identifying data collection methods, and collecting the data. The steps involved in a
safety performance management program include program development, benchmarking,
auditing, measuring performance, evaluating outcomes, and managing the program
based upon the outcomes. A successful safety metrics program requires accountability, a
management structure, and a data collection system. The basic method of the program is
to systematically gather data and analyze it to determine whether the organization's per-
formance goals have been met. Analysis may include comparisons to established bench-
marks, goals, or other collected data.
The final key component of any safety performance program is the follow-up. Follow-
up should be based on the trends and differences identified in the analysis. It can include
5
6 CHAPTER 2
developing new policies and procedures, modifying existing policies and procedures, or
changing the physical characteristics of the workplace or job task.
The central function of any performance measure is to provide regular, valid data on
indicators of performance (Hatry, 2006, 13). Comparisons between performance measures
and benchmarks or organizational goals allow the safety manager to make decisions and
take appropriate action. The key difference between performance measures and safety
metrics is that performance measures evaluate the safety process, and safety metrics are
the standards of measurement (such as accident rates). A series of safety metrics make up
a safety performance measure.
One of the main advantages of using performance measures is that they enable com-
panies to express the results of a safety process in quantitative, not qualitative, terms that
can then be analyzed to determine efficiency of safety and health processes (Leandri
2001, 39). These measurements permit identification and prioritization. They also identify
the most rewarding efforts and allow prioritization of company-wide issues.
A safety performance measurement system based upon continuous improvement
processes requires the safety manager to have a program framework in place. A frame-
work assists in the development of a safety performance measurement program by estab-
lishing well-defined performance measures, identifying all areas of safety performance,
and documenting procedures for implementing the program.
man resources. External sources of input can include other companies and professional
organizations.
objectives are not being performed. The process for developing safety performance indi-
cators will be covered in Chapter 4 and 6.
Finally, the safety metrics are the data and measures which indicate the status of safety
performance indicators. The safety metrics are the means by which the safety perform-
ance indicators can be measured and quantified. For example, a performance measure
may be the effectiveness of the safety training program used at an organization. The
safety metrics used to quantify this effectiveness may include pre and post training test
scores and the results from job observations. Defining and analyzing safety metrics is
covered in Chapters 7 thru 15.
Activity measures monitor the performance of activities that are needed to reach key
objectives. They reflect focused safety issues such as the number of hazard surveys con-
ducted, the number of employees trained in lockout/tagout procedures, etc. These meas-
ures, sometimes called "leading" indicators, typically demonstrate the state of work-in-
progress in terms of cost, quality, and time. Often they are found in official internal re-
ports and are likely to be tracked by directors, managers, and supervisors. Leading indi-
cators are measures of the activity prior to the outcome.
The basic concept of performance measurement involves (a) planning and meeting estab-
lished operating goals/standards, (b) detecting deviations from planned levels of per-
formance, and (c) restoring performance to the planned levels or achieving new levels of
performance.
The first requirement of a safety performance measure is a team approach to develop-
ing and implementing the program because safety, and its improvement is not the re-
sponsibility of one department or one person but of everyone in the organization. Input
from a variety of departments and employees is essential in developing a comprehensive
program that includes all aspects of the organization. Involving groups of people also
helps gain support for implementation of the program. A collaborative approach makes it
to assess safety performance using safety metrics from various departments. For exam-
ple, to measure safety performance with regard to back injuries, an organization can use
a safety metric of recordable injuries from the personnel department, records of near miss
incidents from the production department, and the number of visits to the plant emer-
gency room from the medical department. In this situation, three departments have three
different methods of measuring back injuries. This combined measurement provides a
more accurate picture of the overall back injury prevention performance in the work-
place. (If, for example, management looked only at the number of recordable injuries,
and not at the number of near misses, they might be led to believe the workplace is safer
than it is).
The Department of Energy (DOE) uses a performance measurement development ap-
proach consisting of six steps (Training Resources and Data Exchange (TRADE) 2001, 41-
43).
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.