a basis of safety

Any company like ExxonMobil, that has had an excellent safety record for years, will at a given moment be faced with the law of diminishing returns. In other words, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve further improvement. Nevertheless, it still has to be done. The final goal is and will always be zero accidents, not because it is such an appealing number but because every injury, however small, can and must be prevented.

ExxonMobil has a number of instruments to put its safety policy into practice. The basis of this is ExxonMobil's own safety management system, the Operations Integrity Management System. But however good the system is, it is still the employees who have to carry out the many and often complex tasks. And as we all know, nobody is infallible. This problem can to an extent be overcome by taking the necessary precautionary measures, such as prescribing protective aids and working procedures, but this is not entirely satisfactory. After all, accidents will happen. Fortunately, they usually have a happy ending. Statistics show that every genuine accident is preceded by three hundred near misses.

Currently, there are ongoing projects at the refineries in Antwerp and Rotterdam that focus precisely on dealing with this weak link in the policy on safety. At both locations, these projects are called Alert and are designed to raise the awareness of ExxonMobil employees and  contractors to the possible consequences of their own actions. It is good to pause for a moment before starting a job to consider the possible risks and to determine what is needed to carry out the job properly. To look before you leap, as the saying goes. Co-workers are also being encouraged to encourage each other to perform their work safely. The safety policy can be further optimized on the basis of both the near-miss reports and observations of each other. The goal is to ensure that everyone leaves the plant at the end of each day as healthy as they entered it in the morning.