Reflections... ZERO is Achievable
APM Team,
This week we hosted our OPS & EHS Teams at the LDC in Pasadena, TX (COVID compliant of course!). A primary theme this week was our safety culture and performance. Our business strategy for excellence is founded on the Safety Keystone philosophy, i.e., that our excellence starts and is rooted in our safety disciplines. If we deliver safety excellence, then we deliver quality, productivity, etc. And our expectation is that the Safety Keystone philosophy will deliver an excellent experience for our employees, with zero injuries (or to state it positively, all home safe 100%).
A question was asked, “Is ZERO realistic?” That is a good question. At its core, this question challenges our ability to deliver an outcome we expect. And if we are setting expectations that are unrealistic, then we are setting ourselves and YOU up for failure.
My question back to the team, “Have we delivered ZERO before?”
Well let’s start with today. We did not have an injury today.
A vast majority of our jobs are executed with zero injuries.
We work at a number of sites that have consecutive jobs with zero injuries.
We have Superintendents who have consecutive years or entire careers with zero injuries.
We have Divisions that have delivered multiple years with zero injuries.
APM has delivered an entire outage season, the 2014 Fall, with zero injuries.
So in my mind, the answer to the question, “Is ZERO realistic?” is a strong YES!
However, don’t just take my word for it. I encourage you to also read the below, written by our own Dave Carroll, at the start of 2016. To echo his words, remove all doubt as to whether ZERO is achievable, and walk into the second half of 2021 believing that we will execute with 100% all home safe.
-----
Team,
We are on day fifteen of 2016 and we are at ZERO! How do we keep it there? It’s “Without a Doubt” .
“Without a Doubt” - You must fully understand the task that you’ll be assigning.
“Without a Doubt” - You must get to know the abilities of each person on your crew.
“Without a Doubt” - You must give detailed work instructions that each employee fully understands.
Everyone involved in a task plays a vital role, if anyone doesn’t completely understand their role “Without a Doubt”, it is all in jeopardy. Knowledge is our key to success!
We must become better with our communication and share ways to remove doubt every day. We need to see more Good Catches and Near Misses sent in for both Safety & Quality so that we can share with not only everyone our region, but all regions and divisions.
Zero is achievable if we focus and perform one task at a time, one day at a time and one job at a time. We must keep focused on what is right in front of us, not the long term end result.
Remove all doubt and we will succeed!!
R. Jake Locklear