Posted By Peter MacDonald Friday Straw Poll Is zero accidents the holy grail of safety? Do you set yourself up to fail if your target is zero accidents. In the real world is it achievable?? Do you think it's achievable in every industry sector? Yes/no is all I need but feel free to explain your answers. Peter

Posted By Andy Petrie It's impossible to achieve zero accident. Why people set up zero accident goals and then constantly fail to achieve them I don't know. You need to set realistic, achieveable targets like 10% reduction on last year etc.

Posted By George Wedgwood I agree that it is unrealistic to set zero as a goal but the commitment to continuous improvement demonstrates much more than failing just to reach zero - although many of our sites smugly boast no 'accidents' in 30 years! I know that is not so as they simply don't count anything that they can get away with and leave us to investigate the reportables mainly. The commitment to improvement is working much better as it gives managers a realistic chance of demonstrating success and we set annual targets of % reduction in frequency rates, set against the Sector averages, to show our comparison.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan While a zero-accident frequency is theoretically possible, there is substantial research indicating that human error is very probable in most situations. So, safety (and quality) management systems have to be designed as trade-offs between economic resources and behavioural goals. Scott Geller, a leading authority on behavioural safety, is explicitly adamant that zero accident frequency is not a realistic goal for humans in economically-constrained work conditions.

Posted By Nigel Hammond No

Posted By Andy Petrie It's hard to imagine going to go to work with the intention of having an accident; which by definition is an unexpected event.

Posted By Elvis Not working in the industry at the moment but hoping to maybe get a job in H&S in the near future. It is interesting to hear the varying opinions on whether a zero accident rate is realistic. My query is that as accidents often happen due to a unique chain of events (which may not always be identifiable), should you fail to achieve the zero target has it been a bad year for the organisation? Or is there an acceptable level of accident for the organisations? IE has the target (holy grail) been set at a level over and above the the level of loss the organisation is willing to tolerate. I hope the above makes sense... if it doesn't then I will attempt to clarify.

Posted By Peter MacDonald I just wonder the following scenario If over a year on a construction site the only accidents have been two paper cuts and a staple in the finger is that a bad year, three accidents on site!!!. If I was pulled up by the client for this I would be struggling to react in a professional manner. Is this where we're going?, Stat driven management at the expense of common sense. Peter

Posted By Jennifer Kelly Barry - agree with you although having been recently plagued by several RIDDORS involving twisted ankles and the only apparent cause was tripping over own feet I occasionally feel that on a construction site zero everything AFR is a pipe dream.

Posted By Merv Newman I was HSE manager for two sites. One, a chemical plant had no recordables for six years (250 employees) The other, an engineering plant of 500 employees had one LTI and 3 recordables over a 10 year period. And I KNOW that that was all. I am now working with a truck building plant, 3000 employees. They have gone 3 months without LTI and we are still working on further improvements. Yes it is achievable.

Posted By Merv Newman Neil, I agree with you : management blame the workers for accidents, workers blame the management. Which is why I teach that accident inquiries look into what are, for me, the three main categories of causes ; Working conditions, including machinery, installations, buildings and facilites, walkways etc. Management systems aka HSAS 18000 (that's just short hand for management actually managing safety in a responsible manner) Human error. Three lines of inquiry which should/could lead to three different action plans. Get ALL of these areas right, simultaneously and you will eliminate accidents. Merv

Posted By Alec Wood Only on paper. Zero accidents and zero LTI are not the same thing. While zero LTI is acheivable through active management control, there will likely always be accidents in almost every sector. Regardless of how good a management system is, human's make errors, and these may lead to accident in some cases. More often than not, a criteria is developed to define what is recordable and what is not. Once this has been done, a zero accident rate is claimed because all the accidents which occurred are now classed as "non-recordable". That doesn't mean there weren't any, just that we have decided to ignore them. Zero accident should be our goal, that Nirvana for which we all aim, but is totally inappropriate as a KPI. Using it as such just encourages non-reporting, and puts pressure on shop floor workers not to report. The impact of this pressure should not be underestimated. Imagine you sustain a cut to the finger from a sharp offcut of steel which can be dealt with by cleaning and application of elastoplast. At the gate is a big sign proudly proclaiming 250 days without any accidents. Likelihood is you will reach into your pocket for the elastoplast you brought from Tesco and not report the acccident (or clean the wound) - you do not want to be the guy held responsible by the site manager for the demise of the proudly displayed sign at the front gate. Is that really what we want? For this reason I have always maintained that severity rate rather than frequency should be used as a KPI. Safety management is much like most other areas of management. A real understanding of workers attitude comes from personal experience or at the very least spending time with the guys at the bottom of the food chain, not the top. Alec Wood Viewtek Display Services Ltd