Cultural and Behavioral Practises To Improve Safety and Quality Performance
Authors: Beesley Nick 
Published: October 2008

Since 1997 the Shearwater fabrication project has clearly demonstrated that health and safety performance has dramatically improved. This followed the introduction of a series of management led initiatives and workforce held beliefs to enhance a poor safety record. A number of factors such as the organizational environment, management attitude and individual commitment together with the catalytic effect that a prestigious project such as the Shearwater project has all influenced the issue of improving safety performance. Such success has always been measured using a variety of different analytical and statistical tools. However for the Shearwater team the greatest single factor has been shown to be associated with the personal attitudes of management and the workforce towards health, safety and environmental matters, an unquantifiable index. These values were far more difficult to measure but were initially collected from all personnel employed on the yard through the completion of a safety climate survey. The records were established according to worker activity and then benchmarked against other comparable industrial sectors. Periodical assessments of health and safety compliance were also performed at regular intervals. Similarly assessments were completed after different safety themes were introduced following a period which allowed the initiative to bed-in. These enabled the health and safety specialists at the fabrication yard to understand how they were both received by the workforce and therefore how effective they were to aiding a reduction in accidents and in certain cases targeting specific types of incidents. The fabrication phase of the Shearwater project has recently been completed and the latest results are detailed in this paper.

Introduction

Historically the health and safety performance of the construction industry in the United Kingdom has as a general rule been poor in comparison with other industrial sectors. These circumstances have developed despite the provision within the present legislative framework to regulate such industries and the health and safety in the workplace in particular. These controls apply equally to both the employer and their employees. The health and safety at work act places certain obligations on both of these parties. These enacting regulations are not solely in place to establish a means under which prosecutions can be brought in the event of something going wrong but the act aims to deliver the necessary structure under which the workplace activities can be performed taking due account of health and safety issues.

Against this background the health, safety, environmental and quality performance of the AMEC Process and Energy fabrication yard at Wallsend in Newcastle Upon Tyne during the fabrication phase of the Shearwater project can truly be described as representing a world class achievement.

The AMEC Process and Energy health, safety and environmental philosophy is a simple one. It states that any accident or incidents however minor their potential to inflict harm whether to an individual, group of individuals or the environment is unacceptable. Health, safety and the environment are the first priority.