Questions
		1. How can I convince our Operations group that they need to own safety? The key to getting Operations to truly own safety is to speak their language. Operations is typically judged by its efficiency. While it’s certainly true that downtime, scrap, and defects reduce operating efficiency, it’s also true that worker injuries are costly and greatly reduce operating efficiency. If you want Operations to own safety, you must talk dollars and make sense! 2. Do you really expect Operations to own worker safety? Yes. For years, we have held first-line supervisors accountable for the production, customer service, and quality produced by their people; so, why have we allowed them to abdicate responsibility for worker safety? We know that medical costs are soaring, and we also know that injuries can be prevented, so why do we put up with supervisors with skyrocketing worker injury rates? 3. We’re consistently at or above industry average for injuries in our SIC code, do we really need SafetyIMPACT!? No, at least not as long as you aspire to be average. Many organizations use these industry averages as a way to convince themselves that they are doing all they can to prevent worker injuries, but the reality is, average performance is costing your organization thousands—or perhaps MILLIONS—of dollars in waste associated with the cost of hurting workers. 4. We have safety professionals on staff, why do we need O/E? SafetyIMPACT! represents a major change in the culture of most companies, and culture change is difficult to drive from within. In fact, many experts in Operational Excellence cite the lack of an outside driver for change as a primary reason that Operational Excellence efforts fail; sometimes, you need an outsider to tell the emperor that he’s naked.