December 3, 2008—Contractor Safety Case Study: Texas Operations Contractor Alliance for Safety at Dow Facility in Freeport, Texas, is a recent product of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) alliance with The Dow Chemical Company that shows how Dow’s contractors reduced their recordable injury rate by more than 90% at the facility.
Dow says it places a high value on employee safety and health, and has targeted 2015 to achieve a global goal of a total worksite injury/illness rate of 0.08 per 200,000 worked-hours. This metric includes both Dow and non-Dow employees at Dow sites and represents a 75% reduction from 2007 levels. The company believes that all injuries can be avoided.
Dow Texas Operations in Freeport is Dow’s largest integrated site, comprising three major integrated complexes, more than 5,000 acres, and 75 individual production plants that employ more than 4,500 people, with approximately 9.5 million contractor worked-hours per year. The site manufactures more than 46% of Dow products sold in the US and 23% sold globally, including fine and complex chemicals, hydrocarbons, specialty polymers, agricultural chemicals, and other products used in a variety of end products.
Texas Operations and its contractors began partnering in the early 1980s for safety and health training. In the 1990s, Dow worked to increase contractor safety, soliciting the help of senior management from the firms involved. In 1995, the Texas Operations Contractor Alliance for Safety (TOCAS) was formed with 15 contractor companies.
Dow says the effort produced improvements almost immediately. In 1995, the Texas Operations recordable rate was 3.31, and by 1996, the rate had dropped to 1.85. According to Dow, convening the managers responsible for the financial and human resources of the contractor companies resulted in the start of positive changes.
The case study site explains the TOCAS background and safety and health procedures and training, including the Safe Behavior Process training for employees—including the Safety Observation Intervention Program for the identification of hazards, and the Pre-Task Analysis Tool for the elimination or control of hazards—and Dow’s global Contractor Safety Standard.
