Introduction

The Safety Management Process (SMP) is a process utilized by the Coors Brewing Company that measures safety performance proactively instead of reactively and ultimately drives safety performance in manufacturing facilities. SMP is a computer-based system designed by Anne M. Bevington, of the Coors Brewing Company- Golden Brewery Business Unit (Coors-GBBU). The computer program generates a common metric to track and predict safety performance. SMP tracks proactive safety participation, team safety initiatives, compliance training, and injury rates and combines them into an overall SMP score that is based on a 100 point system.

The underlying principle with the SMP system is that proactive participation or employee engagement drives the safety performance at any industrial facility. SMP is tracking proactive safety activities instead of the traditional reactive measures like total case incident rates and lost work incident rates. Safety activities (known as "Participation" in the SMP system) are tracked at the employee level not at a facility level. This allows employees to directly impact or control their safety performance.

Safety Management Process

As shown in Figure 1, SMP is a weighted system that emphasizes proactive measures versus reactive measures.

Figure 1: Safety Management Process Flowchart (available in full paper).

SMP Implementation

Coors-GBBU implemented the SMP partially in 2002 and across its entire population in 2003. Coors-GBBU is the world's largest single site brewery and has approximately 2,000 employees. Coors-GBBU consists of Malting, Brewing and Fermenting operations as well as Packaging and Transportation of products and includes all associated support activities.

Coors-GBBU implemented the SMP partially in 2002 and across its entire population in 2003. Coors-GBBU is the world's largest single site brewery and has approximately 2,000 employees. Coors-GBBU consists of Malting, Brewing and Fermenting operations as well as Packaging and Transportation of products and includes all associated support activities.

The Packaging Department (where beer is packaged in cans, bottles or kegs) piloted the SMP program prior to it being introduced to the entire plant. This phased-in approach allowed the Environmental, Health and Safety Department to test the hypothesis that active employee participation would drive safety performance. The Packaging Department is a large department with over 500 employees and at the time of SMP implementation was considered a high risk and high injury area. This area of Coors-GBBU focused on individual employee safety participation and safety training. The safety results since implementation of SMP speaks for itself. The Can Line Department and the Bottles and Keg Department have decreased total injuries by 42% and 35%, respectively since 2002.

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