Stop Paying for the Same Lessons Again and Again

Aug 21

I've seen this play out many times and in many organizations over my career. I have to say, though, it is always magical when that "light bulb" moment hits and there is an audible “aha” from the Plant Manager or Operations Leadership Team I'm working with.

It typically goes like this:

Issues repeat. Corrective actions close, but the condition remains. One shift learns something the next shift never sees. And the cycle repeats.

That is not just a safety problem. It is an execution problem.

I started SoIN Safety because I kept seeing employers pay for the same lessons over and over again. The event was investigated. Training was assigned. The action was closed.

But the conditions behind the event did not always change.

A machine jams. An operator develops a workaround. Maintenance finds missing information. A contractor arrives without the right documentation.

The immediate problem gets handled. Production continues.

Then the same issue appears somewhere else.

Let's talk about changing that pattern.

Alcoa Made Every Event Useful

Under Paul O’Neill, Alcoa required every injury, including first-aid cases, to be entered into a real-time system within 24 hours. That information was shared across 343 locations so another operation could learn from the event before experiencing it.

Historical accounts report that Alcoa’s lost-workday case rate fell from 1.86 to 0.23 per 100 workers. Using the National Safety Council’s average cost per medically consulted injury, that rate change would roughly translate to $782,000 in potential annual cost avoidance for every 1,000 workers.

The real lesson is that when learning is captured and scaled across the organization. One plant’s problem becomes useful to the entire company.

Dow Connected Safety to the Business

Dow reported $5 billion in savings from a $1 billion investment in its Environment, Health & Safety goals.

Those savings included safety, waste, water, and energy improvements. It would be inaccurate to attribute the entire amount to safety. But that is also the point. The same unreliable process that creates an exposure may also create scrap, downtime, wasted energy, or quality problems.

Safety and operational excellence are often looking at the same system from different directions.

Vogtle Improved the Work

At the Vogtle Nuclear Plant, Idaho National Laboratory and Southern Nuclear evaluated mobile work packages and computer-based procedures. The goal was to improve the information available at the point of work through better component verification, worker walkdowns, field usability testing, and work-status visibility. The published business case estimated approximately $6.5 million in annual savings at full implementation.

It was an estimate, not audited savings. But the value pathway is familiar to anyone in manufacturing:

Less time searching for information Fewer manual handoffs Fewer transcription errors Less rework Better maintenance and outage coordination

The improvement did not come from another reminder to pay attention.

It came from making the work easier to perform correctly.

Where Are You Paying Twice?

Think about one problem your organization has experienced more than once.

Then ask:

Did the corrective action reflect Work as Done or only Work as Imagined? Who owned removing the conditions behind the event? How was the lesson shared with other shifts, departments, or facilities? Who verified that the change actually improved the work? What has recurrence cost in downtime, labor, scrap, rework, or risk?

A lesson does not create value because it was documented. It creates value when it changes the operating system.

Safety is the outcome. Execution is the lever.

At SoIN Safety, I help employers diagnose the systems of work so they can see signals, remove barriers, and scale learning across operations.

If your operation has an issue that keeps coming back, I am always open to comparing notes.

Request a Diagnostic Conversation

Sources

Originally published in The All-In on Safety Brief.

nick combs