ABSTRACT
SARAWAK SHELL/SABAH SHELL Petroleum Company have followed an enhanced safety management programme for about seven years and have made significant improvements in their safety record for both Company and contractor staff in that period. A leading indicator of safety performance in the early part of the programme was the Lost Time Injury (LTI) frequency. As the accident frequency fell, another LTI based indicator was introduced. At first this was applied to Company staff only but recently only the combined achievements of Company and contractor staff have been considered.
The frequency of LTI's has now dropped to a level where it is no longer a sensitive measure of safety performance. This applies especially for Company staff and individual sectors of the operation where only a few LTI's occur each year. Retaining LTI's as the basis for key safety performance indicators generates negative effects. Worst of these is a tendency to foster a "blame culture", tempting staff to hide or downgrade the severity of accidents, sometimes going to amazing lengths to do so. Full accident reporting and investigation may also be inhibited, an important activity in a safety conscious company.
This paper outlines how SSB/SSPC has attempted to introduced more sensitive statistical measures of safety performance and makes proposals for further developments away from the traditional measures based on the LTI.
