Oak Ridge
National
Laboratory: Safety
Program Overview
Oak Ridge Business Safety
Partnership
“Safety in Nuclear and Commercial
Facilities: Programs that Work”
December 11, 2013
Chris Patton, CSP
Division Director, Safety Services
World class scientific research
facilities
• Largest science and energy national laboratory in the
Department of Energy system.
• ORNL’s scientific programs focus on
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materials,
neutron science,
energy,
high-performance computing,
systems biology, and
national security
• U.S. patents since 2003: 292
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User facilities for academia and
industry
• ORNL operates nine user facilities that draw thousands of
research scientists and visitors each year.
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Building Technologies Research and Integration Center
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
Center for Structural Molecular Biology
High Flux Isotope Reactor
High Temperature Materials Laboratory
National Center for Computational Sciences
National Transportation Research Center
Shared Research Equipment Collaborative Research Center
Spallation Neutron Source
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Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Staff: 4,400
• Research staff: 1,600 scientists and engineers
• Users and visiting scientists, annually: 3,000
• Established: 1943 as
part of the World War II
Manhattan Project
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ORNL Safety Services Division
Director
Health & Safety
Group
Health & Safety
Program Management
Wellness
Respiratory Protection
Cost Center
Safety Eyewear
Cost Center
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Field Support
Fire Protection Engineering &
Facility Risk Management
Group
Sampling & Analysis
Hazardous Materials
Management Program
Fire Protection
Engineering
AHJs
Leadership engagement in safety
Defining organizational values starts at the top,
but reinforcement happens everywhere
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Constantly analyzing and
understanding our safety performance
drives continuous improvement
• Monthly trending meeting evaluates all of the signals
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Lessons Learned
HPI error precursors
Events
Management observations & STOP observations
Effectiveness of our safety programs
• HPI analysis of events and trends
– Line organizations value the lessons they get
from HPI analysis of events
– Consistent, credible HPI data
– HPI error precursors often provide a common link
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“There is only one thing
more painful
than learning from
experience and that is
not learning from
experience.”
- Archibald MacLeish
Assessing the safety culture by
capturing data
• Formal surveys
– Questions developed through collaboration with other Battelle
laboratories
– Focus on mindful leadership
• Management presence in the field is a performance
expectation
• Employee engagement is
facilitated and encouraged
• HPI data is a learning tool
There are both weak and strong signals
that can be mined to tell us about our culture
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We influence our safety culture through
strategic, effective communications
Continuous Safety
Leadership reinforcement
• Customized Safety
Leadership training for
each Directorate
• Management Boot
Camp
• Qtly ALD 1x1
• Extended Leadership
Team meetings
• Ops Council meetings
• Regular engagement
with key line managers
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Relevant and entertaining
safety communications for
staff
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Safety Snapshot
Entertaining Videos
Safety Flashes
FREE Lessons
Management
observations and
demonstrated safety
leadership
• I Care We Care
• Joint
Labor/Management
safety committee
ORNL’s injury reduction efforts have
made a difference
• Improvements were driven by
– Focused management attention
– Better processes
– Better understanding
of our injuries
• We have focused on
understanding human
performance and identifying
latent organizational
weaknesses
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Recent events have made us look
for blindspots
• Many companies involved in recent
catastrophic industrial accidents had
better-than-average
injury rates and received numerous safety
awards
• TRC and DART rates do not address
the risk of catastrophic events and serious
operational failures
Safety is not just about
the absence of injuries,
it is about the presence
of systems for managing risk
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“BP focused on safety efforts dealing with slips, trips,
falls, and vehicle accidents, even as catastrophic
process risks were overlooked or not controlled.”
Congressional Testimony of Carolyn W. Merritt, Chairman,
Chemical Safety Board, May 16, 2007
Continue to balance efforts between
personnel safety and major risks
• ORNL has no systems subject
to the OSHA PSM standard,
but we manage facilities with
the potential for catastrophic events
• Better understanding of error
precursors and latent organizational
weaknesses to help prevent a
catastrophic event
• Strive for high reliability,
and incorporate strategies
to manage catastrophic risk
and reduce individual injuries
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Key Challenges
• Managing a diverse set of risks
in a dynamic research environment
• Reduced resources
• Loss of experience
Informal relationships and practices create
strong chains, and when you strip away the
experience factor, you erode the safety buffer
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Become high reliability seeking
• Identify processes and
systems with potential for
catastrophic events
• Apply traditional PSM and
Systems Safety tools to
manage risk
• Monitor performance of
controls through balanced
indicators
• Open sharing of
information to grow as a
learning organization
• Promote a just culture
• Encourage a questioning
attitude
• Foster mindful leadership
• Trend HPI error
precursors
• Maintain work control
• Raise awareness through
safety communications
• Seek employee
involvement
• Encourage management
engagement & safety
leadership
Make our procedures and
processes more error tolerant
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Promote a better understanding of
error precursors and latent
conditions that promote errors
Programs
Maintain our
established injury
prevention programs
Culture
Focus on tools for
managing the
unexpected
Systems
Strategically
manage our biggest
risks
Apply HPI principles and concepts
to injury and event investigation to
understand the reasons mistakes
occur