Safety performance improves with proactive effort

June 1, 2004
FOCUS on proactive behavior rather than reactive. That's the message from ExxonMobil for improving safety performance. The key to this is to have all

FOCUS on proactive behavior rather than reactive. That's the message from ExxonMobil for improving safety performance.

“The key to this is to have all of your drivers involved, even though it's very time-consuming for drivers and supervisors,” said Mike Scamardi.

He and Bob Manchester, both of ExxonMobil Fuels Marketing, said the company has improved its safety performance by adopting initiatives that involve job safety analysis, self assessment, loss prevention observations, near loss reporting, loss investigation, a root cause analysis flow chart, and stewardship.

Loss prevention observations include drivers evaluating peers — such as how they handle loading and unloading procedures and avoid mixing products.

In addition, the company urges drivers to report an action they may have taken that could have led to an incident.

Drivers undergo unannounced competency checks. “We do this periodically throughout our fleet just to keep everybody on their toes,” he said.

In order to solicit public response, a decal with the company telephone number is placed on the back of tank trailers. Although some of the public responses are bogus, managers found that about 15 percent proved to be accurate.

Weeding out the false complaints, the company can determine problems when repeated complaints over a short period of time are received about the same driver.

ExxonMobil understands the importance of the driver training program in improving its safety performance. In order to make it even more effective, the trainer/driver ratio was increased to one trainer for every 40 drivers.

To expand its program further, ExxonMobil conducts weekly safety teleconferences with its managers and carriers. The information is then summarized and disseminated throughout the company.

Tracking and analyzing safety performance provides the company with the information it needs to address specific problems while at the same time reinforcing successful safety behaviors.

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