In Pursuit of Happiness in Safe & Reliable Operations

Its in our DNA, its part of our culture, we don't move forward with a new project until we know the safety ramifications. Global Asset Intensive organizations run safe and reliable operations, the must as its usually mentioned in the first sentence in their "About" section.

But seriously, they do, these operations are tough, dangerous and yield high rewards. Asset Intensive industries do not need bad press, when things go bad in industries like Mining, Oil & Gas or Utilties, people die, environments get damaged, homes and business explode! Yes, there is a such thing as bad press.

The problem is these organizations are in business where they cannot win at the safety and reliability game, there are always lapses in judgement and just plain old accidents. How can a Oil Vessel think it can have route over the most globally prestine and protected marine environments in the world? Why can 100 miners be trapped for a week in a collapsed mine by eating nothing but tree bark and sawdust?

Worse yet it trying to navigate a framework of compliance that each country institutes with environmental, health and safety regulations. Further, is having within a certian country, regulations that seem to have no standard or consistency, because you can just through people at the problem. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal describes this very problem: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703502804575101500778067986.html

So what is there to do? This is usually the point where I believe appropriate technology and business processes can solve the problem, and it can, to some degree, but not when inspectors vary on the regulations. Its hard to show compliance of something that changes based on the inspector your talking too.

But I digress, what you really want is to be sure you are continually improving your operations and processes. Call it operational excellence, six sigma, you name it yourself, but understanding the why, and collecting the right information and analyzing it is the only way to lead to step change improvements in an organization. This has proven to lead to reduced accidents, better compliance and profitability.

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