not in place prior to the shutdown, the task would not be performed. Upon the return to work after the shut- down or holiday period, workers were required to attend a safety talk and quality message prior to starting their jobs. Often, joint plant leaders would be at the plant entrances to personally remind employees of the importance of safety. Tis common practice virtually eliminated serious incidents and greatly reduced the rate of incidents immedi- ately after returning to work. Te “Go and See” procedure was another enhancement instituted dur- ing the incident investigation process. While each incident often called for a prompt detailed report-out, the Go and See process took senior plant leaders to the site of the incident or employee concern in order to under- stand all aspects of the situation.
Maintaining the Momentum It took almost 1.5 years for GM
to completely cascade the leadership training to the first line supervisors at all plants in North America. By that time, the initial timeframe for the 50% reduction in total record- able injury and lost workday case rate had expired. Most divisions had met or were very close to the required improvements. From then on, targets were set on a three-year cycle. A 10% improvement over the previous target was typical, although periodically targets were adjusted due to major changes in plants or divisions. Eventu- ally, targets were based on benchmark levels. Incident and severity rates were obtained from similar companies in the automotive industry, as well as other industries. Over the years, the total record-
able rate and lost workday case rate remained the two performance metrics. But leadership realized that to continu- ously improve, it had to look farther upstream. Most facilities started to mea- sure first aid visits and investigate these minor incidents with the same inten- sity as more serious cases. Near-miss incidents received significant atten- tion. Safety messages, including video tapes of high ranking manufacturing executives encouraging the reporting of near-miss incidents, added emphasis
30 | MODERN CASTING June 2011
Fig. 3. GM has established benchmarks with other companies. Shown is how the company ranks in relative rates of total recordable incidents. For each case at Company P, you can see the relative number of cases for GM North America and other companies in the 2008 Benchmark Survey of total recordable incident rates in North America.
Fig. 4. Shown are the relative rates of lost workday cases for GM North America. For the lost workday case rate, the Company P rate was adjusted to 1, with the other companies shown relative to that number.
and credibility to this initiative. Over time, GM and UAW devel-
oped its own leadership safety training, with experiences and examples across GM added to the materials to provide additional validity to the process. Plant managers and local union chairpersons were gathered for a daylong session taught by the manufacturing managers and regional union representatives. Te course materials were also used to con- duct sessions for new leaders and peri- odically as refresher sessions to keep the groups consistent on the principles of the key elements. Plant managers new to a facility were encouraged to conduct a session with their leadership team to reinforce their personal beliefs in workplace safety and establish their personal involvement with the process. A fifth key element also was added
to the system—the Employee Con- cerns Process—in which an employee
with a health- or safety-related issue was empowered to raise the matter with his or her immediate supervisor, who then had a week to address it. Te concern could only be closed if the employee agreed the resolution was acceptable. Higher level management was responsible for all issues open beyond one week, and reports were generated to demonstrate the effec- tiveness of the process. All issues open beyond 30 days were to be resolved at the PSRB level. Workers were encour- aged to use this process but were not prohibited from using other forums for complaints. Most facilities supple- mented other existing processes for problem resolution with the Employee Concerns Process.
Pete Buczek is vice president of consulting ser- vices for Leadership Safety Systems, a division of Work-Fit Inc., Glastonbury, Conn. He is a former employee of General Motors.
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