Sustainability Means Safety at Caterpillar Manufacturing Facilities
Creating a culture of personal accountability for safety
In 2013, Caterpillar Work Tools in Waco, Texas, implemented the Zero-Incident Performance (ZIP™) Process to begin improving its safety culture systematically. Facility Manager John Vizner said the ZIP Process was a change from his team's previous approach to safety management, in which dozens of concurrent initiatives failed to deliver desired results.
With guidance from Caterpillar Safety Services, the Waco Safety Steering Team agreed to focus on three specific areas for improvement in 2013 — start-up meetings, safety observations and incident analysis. For each, a continuous improvement team comprised of front-line employees developed a new or improved process during a three- to four-day Rapid Improvement Workshop.
One by one, the solutions were deployed facility-wide, and positive results quickly followed. In just one year, the facility's Recordable Injury Frequency dropped by 60 percent, an astounding achievement. The numbers tell only part of the story, however. Behind the impressive data is an invigorated, dedicated workforce paying greater attention to hazards, communicating more openly and building workable, flexible solutions that error-proof processes; a culture of personal accountability for safety has developed.
