In May, nearly sixty people convened at the MIT Faculty Club for a two-day conference on transportation safety sponsored by the Center's Corporate Affiliates Program. Organized to focus specifically on commercial transportation, primarily trucking and rail, the conference revealed in its industry presentations a notable increase in corporate safety consciousness. DuPont's reputation for safety goes all the way back to the company's founding as a gun powder production company. When the founder built his mansion only 75 yards from his powder manufacturing plant, he made a clear statement that safety was an important part of the corporate culture.
Safety has to infuse the entire scene, every moment in the workplace.
CSX has also begun a program called Operation Prevention, an alternative approach to accident investigation. The teams are voluntary, and there are 88 of them now in place all across the company, a number which is steadily growing. By nature, Ryder is a highly decentralized operation. As a third-party logistics provider, they have more than 100 separate facilities across the country, most of them dedicated to a specific client, and for the most part they'd always let the managers deal with safety on their own. But by establishing a more centralized hiring process, set up in regional centers, they now have more uniformity in screening and training applicants.