Knowledge Transfer at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station

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Agatha Pierce
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1 Knowledge Transfer at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station T: + () 89 F: + () 8 W: Award Application PJD House, 6 Boundary Court, Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, Derby, DE7 UD, United Kingdom Contact: Mike Mahoney E: mikemahoney@pjdltd.com

Resume of the Project On the basis of safety audits and accidents investigations conducted at the Fiddler s Ferry Power Station (FFPS) PJD in partnership with the client, Scottish and Southern Energy

3 Resume of the Project On the basis of safety audits and accidents investigations conducted at the Fiddler s Ferry Power Station (FFPS) PJD in partnership with the client, Scottish and Southern Energy identified that one of the critical root causes of behaviours that could lead to accidents was the attitude of operatives towards working safely i.e. the culture of safety on site.. This was identified through analysis of over near hits reported in the 9 Outage Works which showed that most incidents arose through employees engaging in behaviours which they knew were unsafe but still proceeded with for a variety of causes. PJD and SSE are strongly motivated to eliminate all accidents and injuries and to promote a strong culture of health and safety. As such Fiddlers Ferry has an excellent safety record in terms of actual accidents but site management was aware that a high level of near hit reporting whilst excellent in itself was still evidence that unsafe behaviours were taking place. To improve safety performance even further a decision was taken by the Senior Management Team of both companies to introduce a behavioural safety programme at FFPS. Historically however, evidence shows that such programs have an initial impact which improve behaviours only temporarily and the effect then declines due to such factors as disinterest, changes of management emphasis and movement of key staff.. Therefore an innovative solution needed to be found to address these limitations. Mike Mahoney (PJD H&S director) identified a government-supported scheme called Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) that could potentially offer an innovative, science-based solution to the recognized challenge. KTP is Europe s leading programme helping businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the partnership between universities and industry. Mike aligned with the following partners: Scottish and Southern Energy, the site client The British Safety Council whose remit was to initiate the Culture Change Programme Manchester Metropolitan University where the KTP Programme is based The programme commenced with a recruitment drive to find an appropriate candidate for the position of KTP Associate who would liaise between all the above parties and be based with the project for two and a half years full time. Throughout this period the Associate would be supported by a leading academic from the relevant field. The recruitment process identified a suitable candidate who is a psychologist and has recently accomplished his professional doctorate in safety culture interventions in the heavy manufacturing sector. This person was appointed in September. Challenges of the behaviour change project included implementing change in a difficult to effect sector (community of workers) with generally low levels of educational attainment with resistance to change and used to traditional top down management practices. Change in behaviour was further complicated by the fact that this is a multi-organisational situation at FFPS where PJD is responsible for up to other contractors working on site. This situation and large numbers of short term staff makes gaining and maintaining H&S performance improvements particularly difficult, but also means that the potential benefits will transfer beyond the company. The expected outcomes would include further reductions in accidents and near hits, minimisation of time losses and securing power supply to the region. Moreover, the developed insight into the nature of behaviour change could be shared with the industry and transferred to other sites.

One One The British Safety Council led a programme which commenced with a culture evaluation questionnaire which identified attitudes towards safe behaviour and identified areas of concern.

These groups ranged from the Senior Management teams of the companies based on site to the youngest apprentice.

4 One One The British Safety Council led a programme which commenced with a culture evaluation questionnaire which identified attitudes towards safe behaviour and identified areas of concern. Evidence gained from this questionnaire was then used to support behavioural safety training to differing groups of site based employees. These groups ranged from the Senior Management teams of the companies based on site to the youngest apprentice. In total over employees went through this process which started in January and was completed for the start of the KTP Associate s arrival on site. The KTP Associate introduced a number of initiatives aiming to improve safety culture and affect employees behaviours. One of these interventions is a behavioural safety programme branded as OneOne. The programme encourages staff to conduct positive conversations about one or more behaviours (and its consequences) which if conducted unsafely could result in an incident, near hit, injury or accident. OneOne was developed in line with psychological research which suggests that positive reinforcement of desired behaviour is more effective than punishing unwanted behaviour. Further, the programme was designed to improve frequency and quality of safetyrelated communications and to advance organisational learning. The OneOne conversations aim to reinforce safe behaviours and reduce the number and impact of unsafe behaviours. The OneOne conversation is based on a framework that guides employees through a number of steps. These include:. Initiating contact (observing work, introducing your self, explaining what you are doing, asking to describe stages of the job),. Praising / acknowledging safe behaviour,. Asking about the potential consequences if something went wrong. Asking why the job was done that way. Achieving commitment. Employees use specially designed cards to report the content of their conversations. These include information about location, role of a person they spoke to, date, time, number of people participating in the discussion, discussed behaviour, and if unsafe: root cause of the behaviour and actions taken. The filled in forms are put by employees to special boxes located around the plant. The cards are collected on daily basis and inputted to bespoke database. The gathered information help the management to better understand safety behaviour on site and promptly take appropriate actions.

5 To date over Oneones have taken place with the information being collated to a data base. Interrogation of this data is proving invaluable in identifying root causes of behaviours and the areas of plant where improvement is required. This then enables the KTP Associate supported by the site safety teams to work directly with the employees and the areas identified as being of concern. As the programme continues other initiatives will be introduced in the knowledge that through KTP and the support of the partnership then there is sufficient time and resources to really make a difference to people s behaviour and both theirs and their families life.

6 Example of Data Analysis and the Resultant Action The graphs below show on of the analysis conducted in January. 8. Correct gloves being used 8. Correct eye protection worn boiler turbine ash and dust plant workshops offices coal plant FGD roadways switchroom laggons other areas Graph. Reported number of conversations about unsafe behaviour related to hand and eye protection in particular locations.. Rushing. Deliberate act. Personal error; person forgot. Complacency. Insufficient knowledge/training 8. Equipment unsuitable/unavailable Graph. Reported root causes for not wearing eye protection in all locations. The root causes for unsafe behaviours related to eye protection in turbine were analysed in more detail. It turned out that some employees did not wear the glasses due to high level of humidity (glasses steamed) and also due to forgetting (memory error). In response to these findings new type of eye protection (high humidity resistant glasses) has been introduced and new signage reminding about PPE was installed on the entrance door to address memory error.

Three Years of Peer-To-Peer Safety Conversations. The Power Industrial Group s Experience and Future

Three Years of Peer-To-Peer Safety Conversations The Power Industrial Group s Experience and Future The Problem In 2009 a root cause analysis of accidents and incidents, on a site where the Power Industrial