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Doing the job safely a must

  • Published
  • By Brandice J. Armstrong
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Employee Safety is not only a top priority at Tinker, but it is also the second of four Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center breakthrough performance areas for fiscal 2011.

In late October, Maj. Gen. David Gillett, OC-ALC commander, introduced four BPAs at the State of the ALC presentation. Designed as focus areas, the BPAs correlate with a specific strategic goal. They also enable strategic goal owners to broaden their problem-solving skills.

Employee Safety correlates with the center's second strategic goal: Develop and Care for Our People to Enable Success. The strategic goal is owned by General Gillett, but the BPA is owned by the 72nd Air Base Wing Safety Office. The BPA has one immediate and one future goal: "All sites at or below peer industry standards for injury and illness rates and all sites at half industry standards over the next five years."

"We cannot be so focused on production that we allow safety to slip. It is easy to make the case, if you're worried about speed, then maybe you're not as worried about safety," said Lt. Col. Aaron Troxell, 72nd ABW/SE chief.

As production and workloads increase at the ALC, Colonel Troxell said safety must remain a top priority. Not only does it help production rates when we are at full strength, but allows personnel to go home after work and lead fruitful lives free of work related injuries.

To achieve our breakthrough goal, Colonel Troxell and the seven OC-ALC Voluntary Protection Program sites have researched the Total Case Incident Rate and Days Away, Restrictions and Transfers' statistics within their organizations. To do so, each unit compared their specific industry with commercial counterparts.

While most organizations have significant strides to make before reaching their goals, Colonel Troxell said the goals are attainable. By asking each VPP site to determine their most frequent injury, they can examine the root cause and take steps to reduce it. By focusing efforts and resources on reducing an organization's one or two most common injuries at a time, Tinker will make a difference in employee safety.

"There's a philosophy that our VPP executive steering committees have adopted - the approach is if you try to solve every type of injury at the same time, you will not solve any," the colonel said.

Once the one or two most common injury types are reduced, VPP sites can then redirect their efforts on the next frequent issues.

"The challenges will be starting to rethink how work is accomplished," Colonel Troxell said. "We have an incredibly capable and professional work force out here that's been doing the same type of job for years. We must continue to challenge them to rethink, am I accomplishing my work safely or is there a better way."

The metrics for TCIR and DART for each VPP site will be reviewed every month. The colonel said the best way to achieve the goal faster is to get everyone involved. Safety is a culture of doing the job right and always remembering to do it safely for those who we work for and those we work beside.

"Don't be intimidated or embarrassed to speak up because by doing so, you'll probably prevent someone from getting hurt and that's worth it," Colonel Troxell said.