Examples

Example 1: The DOE Occupational Injury/Illness Cost Index

This index is the simplest of the three methods presented above. Essentially, the cost index is a linear combination of weighted parameters:

Index = (W1 x P1) + (W2 x P2) + ... + (Wn x Pn)

where Ws are constant weighting factors, and Ps are individual measurable items. When determining the weighting factors, the following could be taken into account:

A strength of weighted linear combinations is that they can assist in determining how to allocate limited resources. That is, if W1 = 3 and W2 = 1, then, given limited resources, addressing P1 provides more benefit than addressing P2 and resources could be applied accordingly. Essentially, this is a "tradeoff" where one unit of improvement in P1 is worth losing up to 3 units of P2.

Caution! People will make these tradeoffs! If you mix safety and production indicators together, you may, unwittingly, be sending the signal that degradation in safety performance can be offset by increased production.

The DOE Occupational Injury/Illness Cost Index combines the following indicators:

The weighting factors were determined using dollar cost analysis.

Example 2: Westinghouse Hanford Conduct of Operations Event Index

Let's look at another example of an index based on linear combinations: the Conduct of Operations Event Index developed at the Westinghouse Hanford Company. This index is different from the previous example in that it does not utilize weighting factors for the components. Basically, this index measures the number of certain types of occurrence reports per 200,000 hours worked by an organization. This index uses information that can be obtained from the Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS). The following parameters are combined:

A. Skin and clothing contaminations: Number of Occurrence Reports with nature of Occurrence of 4B (Personnel Contamination).

B. Violations of Procedures: Number of Occurrence Reports with a Root Cause of 3C (Violations of Requirement or Procedure).

C. Procedure Problem: Number of Occurrence Reports with Root Cause of 2A or 2B.

D. Training Deficiency: Number of Occurrence Reports with Root Causes 5A through 5E

E. Management Problem: Number of Occurrence Reports with Root Causes 6A through 6F.

F. Lockout/tagout errors: Number of Occurrence Reports judged to be lockout/tagout related.

G. Work control errors: Number of Occurrence Reports judged to be work control related.

Note that some of the Occurrence Reports could fall into multiple categories and will be counted more than once.

H. Person-hours worked: Each facility determines which employees should be included in the person-hours calculation.

The index calculation is based on the number of occurrences that happened during the time period (as per the above criteria) divided by the opportunities for occurrences to happen (i.e., person-hours worked):

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The use of person-hours assumes that the larger the operating force of a facility, the more opportunity there is for Conduct of Operations type events. Dividing by person-hours worked is an attempt to express the conduct of operations as a rate identical to the method used for Lost Work Day Case Rate.

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