Thought Leadership

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A heavy manufacturing organization commonly used Total Quality Manufacturing (TQM) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) techniques. They had some small Continuous Improvement (CI) Teams that engaged in solving the front line day-to-day difficulties which commonly occur in operations of organizations worldwide.

Two years ago, I published an article about water safety. The response was very dramatic. I have decided to republish this article every year to help everyone enjoy the water with no loss of life. This article is dedicated to Zachary, a young grandson of a fellow safety professional who left this life June 1st a couple of years ago. Below is the original article, the response and my follow-up article.

Recently, one of our safety pro acquaintances made a disturbing discovery --his responsibility for improving safety was being hampered by a culture of evaporative acts in the work groups with whom he was to meet. His approach of engaging in open-ended safety conversations with front line employees had developed trust among many of the people at each of the work sites.

Is driver safety seen and acted on by senior management as a critical safety issue? Frequently we see lip service paid to driver safety, with strong statements of corporate commitment but an absence of meaningful action.

With the advent of wearable technology, it may be a low cost bodyguard to bring you home safe and sound. Below are a few options: Cuff --A small device that fits into pieced of jewelry. Billed as “smart jewelry.” Cuff has benign features, like phone notification and activity tracking.

Earlier in my career, I was fortunate enough to have worked for a few organizational giants like NASA, TRW, and United Airlines. Within these organizations, I was exposed to the rigors of systems thinking, Total Quality Management (TQM), and the Baldrige Award efforts of the 1990s.

How many times do you hear someone say safety needs to be a habit? I think people who are great at something display more than outstanding habits; they demonstrate outstanding skill. It is easy to mistake a skill for a habit.

As a safety team member, leader or manager you should understand the basic principle, vision and values of why your company was created.  It either provides a needed product to a consumer base or valuable service to an industry or community.

Working with people is always fun for me because everyone is different. Different in how they think and behave. Also, people have different traits, values and beliefs that shape who they are. Some traits are good, some traits are bad and some traits are ugly.

In the National Football League (NFL), there’s a term bantered about by owners, management, coaches, and scouts - it’s “the nerd factor.” In the NFL, it’s a positive term because it often translates into success.