DuPont Safety Resources worked with Commonwealth Edison Energy Delivery to improve their contractor safety performance from a total recordable frequency rate of ~12.0 to 2.8 in less than 2 years. Commonwealth Edison has sustained the improving trend and achieved a 1.6 recordable rate in 2003. This presentation will describe the elements of the change management process that enabled ComEd to achieve such dramatic and rapid results.

The Challenge

During the late 1990's the Energy Delivery Company of Illinois' Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S., an Exelon Company, was experiencing a high frequency of injuries among its contractor population - including 2 fatalities from electrocution. The trend was extremely troubling to ComEd executives. People were getting hurt and the company's public image was suffering.

The Solution

ComEd put DuPont Safety Resources into the grid. The DuPont Safety Resources well-established Six-Step Process, specifically aimed at reducing contractor injuries, successfully energized contractor performance from senior executives to on-site workers. The process eliminates unsafe contractors at the outset of the bidding process and enforces contractual expectations by holding safe contractors accountable for their safety behavior and performance in pursuit of zero workplace injuries. Yet it avoids direct management or supervision of outside/contract workers by working through the contractor managers motivate their workers in achieving established safety goals.

The Result

  • Confidence with ComEd management to build and implement an effective contractor safety program

  • 70 percent reduction in contractor injury frequency rate within 2 years

  • Company executives are confident to sustained reductions well into the future

Savvy Approach Synergizes Company and Contractors in Full Cooperation

Establishing a coordinated safety program between ComEd and its contractors was challenging because each contractor group has its own risk management approach. With the guidance of DuPont Safety Resources, ComEd began to include safety performance as one of several criteria by which to pre-qualify and select contractors. Criteria also included evaluations of:

  • Safety training of contract workers related to electrical grid maintenance

  • Workers' success in applying those lessons on the job

  • Extent of safety accountability at contractor organizations, whether this lay with one person or all employees

  • Degree of safety knowledge and leadership among contractor senior executives.

The DuPont consulting team helped ComEd improve their contractor safety process as well as leadership skills to more effectively:

Define in-house skill sets needed to draw up contractual terms and conditions related to safety that are specific to safety and that are specific to each contractors' scope of work; Verbally communicate expectations for safe behavior to the contractors in bid meetings; Orient and train contractors by working with ComEd safety managers to improve their instructional methodology and learning approach to maximize contractor comprehension and buy-in

Audit and monitor worker behaviors by identifying leading and trailing metrics of safety behavior and performing effective incident investigations.

Keywords:
Performer, contractor orientation, accountability, Williams, Supervisor, contractor safety, total recordable frequency rate, safety risk management, dupont safety resource, job site
Subjects:
HSSE & Social Responsibility Management, Safety, HSSE management systems, Safety risk management
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2004. American Society of Safety Engineers
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