Safety is part of Amentum’s core values because we have a responsibility to protect the employees in our care as well as the communities in which we serve. Maintaining an effective safety program is a fundamental social business responsibility.
Across industries, there is extensive data to suggest that strong safety performance also results in optimal operational and financial performance. Amentum’s SafeUp® program was recently analyzed to measure operational and financial effectiveness. We also wanted to evaluate customer satisfaction with SafeUp® to protect their employees from injury.
Analysis
A statistical study using five years of data from Amentum’s programs observed the impact of safety performance on Contractor Performance Assessment Report (CPAR) scoring, as measured through the following:
- Number of recordable incidents – calculates work-related injuries or illnesses experienced by employees that require treatment above the first aid level
- Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) – represents the annual number of recordable incidents per 100 employees
- Lost Workday Case Rate (LWCR) – measures the number of recordable incidents per 100 employees that resulted in the employee missing at least one day of work
- Days Away, Restricted, and Transferred Rate (DART) – represents the number of recordable incidents where the employee either missed work, was restricted from doing their typical duties, or was transferred to another department as the result of the limitations of their injury
These rates represent the industry standard for lagging indicator safety performance by normalizing the measurement of injuries against the number of completed hours of work.
Initial Conclusion
Two major conclusions were drawn as the result of the statistical analysis:
- Projects with fewer recordable incidents had higher average CPAR scores. The average CPAR score was ~9% higher for all projects as compared to projects with 2 or more recordable incidents.
2. All major lagging indicators show a stronger correlation with CPAR scores as the number of safety incidents increase. In other words, a lower number of safety incidents correlated with higher CPAR scores.
Lost Work cases negatively correlate with CPAR scores stronger and sooner than other incident types. A conclusion can be drawn that customers penalize contractors more severely with increased incidence of employee injuries, especially those that result in the employees being unable to return to work immediately.
Based upon the results of this analysis, we know three things:
- Employee injuries can negatively impact operational performance, possibly due to down time while an employee is provided medical care or misses work due to their injury or decreased employee morale.
- Customers value Amentum safety programs which protect our employees.
- Safety incidents damage our reputation as well as our relationship with customers.
Successful projects have rigorous systems in place to ensure high-quality, efficient, and safe work, and the presence of employee injuries may indicate a lack of operational excellence, along with a disregard for our employees.
Conclusion
The correlation is clear – implementation of Amentum’s SafeUp® program provides our employees a safe working environment while also resulting in increased customer satisfaction with our work. Safety isn’t an add-on to Amentum’s operations – it’s a feature.
Keeping our employees safe results in high-quality, efficient, and expeditious work, and our customers enjoy the benefits of our unwavering support to their critical missions.
About Amentum’s SafeUp® Program
Amentum envisions a safer, smarter, cleaner world. That vision underpins our fierce commitment to environmental, health, and safety (EHS) excellence. Protecting our people, clients, and communities we serve and driving sustainable business practices is not just the right thing to do, it is essential to our success.
SafeUp® is Amentum’s versatile EHS program, designed to reduce risk and improve reliability. The program improves employee well-being, drives environmental sustainability, and positively impacts the communities we serve. SafeUp® offers a tailored approach for each Amentum project, enabling continual improvement and growth towards becoming a high-reliability organization. It also ensures our safety performance expectations are applied across Amentum’s diverse global operations.
