Rockwell Machine Safety Maturity ModelRockwell Automation sponsored a technology track at the EHS Today Safety Leadership Conference October 27-28, 2015 in Greenville, SC. The seven sessions discussed a variety of issues facing Safety Leaders in industry. These sessions focused on machine safety. Process safety is an entirely different ball game.

Shawn Galloway, president of ProAct Safety, and Steve Ludwig, safety program manager, presented ideas on Improving Safety Performance in a quick, TED-Talk-like pair of presentations. Even though this was the “Safety Technology” track, the seemingly soft topic of company culture was the topic to set the table for the day.

Galloway quoted Winston Churchill, “First we shape our dwellings, then they shape us.” The idea is that we set our culture and then it shapes the overall focus of the company. The key is to reinforce positive behavior.

He drew a circular diagram for the chemistry of safety cultural excellence: vulnerability->communication->measurement->passion->focus->expectations->proactive->accountability->reinforcement

Maturity Index for Machine Safety

Ludwig addressed Rockwell Automation’s Safety Maturity Index. You can find a podcast interview on this topic on my podcast site, Automation Minutes.

The Safety Maturity Index delineates three focuses: Culture (Behavioral), Compliance (procedural), Capital (technical). Each focus contains four levels: minimize investment, attain compliance, cost avoidance, operational excellence.

The key point is that one of the first things manufacturers need to do is to pay attention to developing a safety culture.

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