Is "Zero Accidents" a realistic goal?

B

brahmaiah

#31
I am a little confused here by this statement. Accident means an unplanned/unscheduled event.

Good you help clarify to me what is meant here? I am a little naive.

But either way a "Zero" accident level is in my opinion is unattainable or unrealistic goal.
Take any accident and thoroughly investigate the causes you will find some one has has failed to take a known precaution or some times knowingly ,some times due to ignorance.Take the frequent road accidents I cannot think of any accident where no one is at fault.Even if none of the drivers have made any mistake.Road condition could be wrong or certain trafic regulations are not enforced.For example if there is a manhole in the middle of the road.Just displaying a caution board 'Man hole ahead' won't stop an accident.You have to 'poka yoke. it.

I firmly believe that 'ACCIDENTS DONOT HAPPEN.THEY ARE CAUSED'.
V.J.Brahmaiah
 
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Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#32
I believe it's worthwhile to pursue a zero accidents goal. An appropriate combination of engineering, administrative and personal controls can be designed to trend accidents rates and severity downwards, perhaps reaching zero but in any case reducing the cost, headache and heartache of workplace accidents. I described the process and included a tool in the Reading Room, Slaying Workplace Safety Costs.

A person need to recognize that not everything is controllable: human behavior is the most difficult factor to control, both in the individual who elects to not wear PPE or perform a task safely, the culture that pressures people into taking shortcuts by demanding speed over pragmatism, and the limitations of engineering/administrative control capability to curtail a person's taking that fateful short cut. For these reasons, having a goal is good but the consequences of not achieving it should not be punishment, but a renewed effort to optimize safe and profitable workplace performance.
 
S

somerqc

#33
I have worked in large companies where '0' Lost Time Accidents was the NORM!! The one company in particular had 45 facilities in North America alone (they 10 in Europe as well). They went 15 years without a Lost Time Accident in any of their facilities!!

Why? They took H&S seriously AND the company shared lessons learned throughout their facilities. It took them 5-6 years to get there, but, the learning curve was severely reduced by this sharing of information.

They applied this to everything they did (re: non H&S topics) as it was part of the culture!

In addition, the next company (another large one) had 1 lost time accident in the 5 years I was there and they were on a 4 year streak of 0 when I left.

There are many examples of this so it is not rare and very acheivable - but, the culture needs to be there otherwise you might as well push water uphill with a stick!

John
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#34
I have worked in large companies where '0' Lost Time Accidents was the NORM!! The one company in particular had 45 facilities in North America alone (they 10 in Europe as well). They went 15 years without a Lost Time Accident in any of their facilities!!

Why? They took H&S seriously AND the company shared lessons learned throughout their facilities. It took them 5-6 years to get there, but, the learning curve was severely reduced by this sharing of information.

They applied this to everything they did (re: non H&S topics) as it was part of the culture!

In addition, the next company (another large one) had 1 lost time accident in the 5 years I was there and they were on a 4 year streak of 0 when I left.

There are many examples of this so it is not rare and very acheivable - but, the culture needs to be there otherwise you might as well push water uphill with a stick!

John
The problem with the idea of counting lost-time accidents is that once a streak is going, no one wants to be the one to break it, and people wind up going to work when they should be staying home. This is great for management and the insurance company, but not so great for people who are put in a position of having to go to work when they shouldn't. Another issue with it is that it tends to mask the number of accidents that happen.
If safety has truly been institutionalized (it's part of the culture), you shouldn't need to count lost-time accidents.
 
S

somerqc

#35
Jim,

Being Canadian (in Ontario), we actually have something called the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (yes, government).

They are very hard on companies to have proper programs in place to have people return to work with appropriate work for the existing injury.

A couple of years ago, we had someone break their leg outside in the parking lot. Due to the extent of the break and the associated surgery, they were off for 2 weeks. When they returned, they were given work that did not cause them to use their leg (i.e. given chair to do productive work - pack kits for products, pack small products, complete required paperwork, etc.). They were able to make full wages while they healed, the company got production, and costs were lowered.

In addition, there needs to be clearance by 2 doctors (one is usually the person's doctor and a WSIB doctor) to qualify for modified work. Hence, greatly decreasing the likelihood of a company arbitrarily deciding when a person should be back to work.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to consider zero for all accidents (i.e. papercuts). Here there are generally 4 categories to safety issues. LTA (Lost Time Accidents - the worst and most sever), MA (Medical Aids - needed to see a doctor for stitches or something like that but came back to work same or next day), FA (First Aid - minor issues that are dealt with by trained 1st aiders within the facility), and NR (Near-misses - nobody hurt but actions that may have resulted in injury in a similar situation).

Generally, only LTA's and MA's are given a goal of zero. The other categories are given progressively lower #'s each year as research shows that if you control the lower (less severe) categories you greatly reduce the chance of a more severe injury.

I still stand by the fact that zero LTA's and MA's are completely attainable in ANY environment IF management spends the time to create the required culture. IF management doesn't spend that time, you are completely wasting your time (gee - sound similar to quality anyone?!?!?!).
 
Q

qualitytrec

#36
I think we need to differentiate between the goal and improvements to move toward the goal.
The goal should be zero accidents, fires, defects, muda, etc... The reality will likely be higher. As a result we evaluate systems to determine improvement in a systematic way in order to move toward the goal.
To say fiscal year 2010 we will have zero accidents when in 2009 you had 20 and have done little or nothing to evaluate risk, train employees, and implement improvements to reduce the likelyhood is a waste of time.

The goal should always be zero otherwise nobody will be motivated to implement improvement and we do not want that.

Mark
 
S

samsung

#37
The goal should always be zero otherwise nobody will be motivated to implement improvement and we do not want that.
Here I have two things to point out:

(1) Goals, in particular those related to accidents, should preferably be based upon the past performance or BDP, people/ system capabilities and technological options (if at all they need to be numerically defined) whether or not they motivate the employees. Else the (numerical) goals not be set at all as Jim Wyne has suggested

When something is bound to happen, even rarely, zero is not a reasonable objective. I think this is self-evident. This doesn't mean that you consider some unknown number of accidents "acceptable." You should be making an effort to reduce the number of accidents, and to do this you need to know about what causes them, and how the causes can be mitigated. It's like any other process--you need to understand the variation and the special causes. I strongly recommend against using workplace accidents and injuries as an objective because at some point the objective will work against you. You can mitigate risk without having a specific goal in mind.
(2) I don't think that keeping a 'zero' goal will necessarily motivate the people. What demotivates the people often is the frustration resulting from non-achievement of an 'unachievable' goal.
 
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Ajit Basrur

Staff member
Admin
#38
Would any employer want to to have any "accident" on their site ? If the answer is NO, it answers the OP question.

Regarding accidents, the goal and reality should always be ZERO.
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#39
Would any employer want to to have any "accident" on their site ? If the answer is NO, it answers the OP question.

Regarding accidents, the goal and reality should always be ZERO.
It's not a question of whether accidents are considered "acceptable." When something is inevitable, it doesn't make any difference whether it's acceptable or not. When people handle heavy things, sooner or later a heavy thing will be dropped. We can mitigate the risk by requiring people to wear steel-toed shoes, and periodically check to verify that they are. In one place where I worked, audits were done by having someone walk around with a long stick with a strong permanent magnet on the end, checking peoples' shoes. That's due diligence, but it's not a perfect solution. It reduces the risk, but it doesn't eliminate it. If you can't eliminate a risk, it makes no sense to expect that a bad thing will never happen, and it also makes no sense to set a goal of something never happening when you know that sooner or later it will.
 

Ajit Basrur

Staff member
Admin
#40
It's not a question of whether accidents are considered "acceptable." When something is inevitable, it doesn't make any difference whether it's acceptable or not. When people handle heavy things, sooner or later a heavy thing will be dropped. We can mitigate the risk by requiring people to wear steel-toed shoes, and periodically check to verify that they are. In one place where I worked, audits were done by having someone walk around with a long stick with a strong permanent magnet on the end, checking peoples' shoes. That's due diligence, but it's not a perfect solution. It reduces the risk, but it doesn't eliminate it. If you can't eliminate a risk, it makes no sense to expect that a bad thing will never happen, and it also makes no sense to set a goal of something never happening when you know that sooner or later it will.
Very true Jim but the Management commitment should be towards zero accidents. In the case of handling heavy things, yes, the safety shoes mitigates the risk and the management would just provide these safety shoes as means to reduce accidents.

But if the goal is a challenging one and motivates towards zero accidents, additional aspects could be considered like providing conveyor belts or cranes instead of carrying materials from one place to another.

Zero accidents is more like a philosphy that could be achieved by reporting / preventing hazards, take responbsibil;ity for own safety, assessments and audits of safety programs, foster safety leadreship in each employee and above all, everyone should believe that zero accidents is possible.
 
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