Fortifying Colombo Dockyard’s Safety Culture With Behavioral Safety

Jan. 13, 2011 - PRLog -- Colombo Dockyard recently embarked on a Behavior Based Safety (BBS) Program in order to build a uniform and strong safety culture across company's operations and galvanize the workforce by enhancing their safety competencies in order to work towards a zero incident work place. The program was conducted by Mr. Maneesh Jha, the Vice Principal and Head Samundra Institute of Maritime Studies in India, a leading industry expert and an authority in the subject.
The main purpose of this program was to uplift the safety standards in the yard to meet emerging challenges from new Customers and venture in to new business avenues with more stringent safety criteria.

To drive and integrate company's safety efforts, we currently have a fully fledged safety department which, notwithstanding the heavy workload and the nature of industry, has been able to keep an ‘accident severity rate’ at an impressive 0.765. But in our quest for continuous improvement, we have identified the larger benefits of BBS and decided to conduct this program as we consider ‘Safety’ to be a core value, as well as a key success factor at Colombo Dockyard.

The benefits of a good Behavior Based Safety process include dramatic reductions in injury rates and compensation costs, which leads to increased profitability of the company. Generally, it is believed that 80 - 90% of workplace injuries are caused by unsafe behaviors of the employees. This program advocates that health and safety is everyone's responsibility making the entire workforce 'take on' the responsibility, making the workplace democratic, involving the workers and empowering them. Gradually shifting the focus from what the employer should do, to what employees can and should do for themselves.

The prime aim of embarking on this Behavioral Based Safety program was to learn all about behavioral safety and learn how to build, tailor and execute a Behavioral Based Safety process that is right for the company and the steps involved in its implementation and maintenance. Conducted by a leading guru in the industry from India, this informative Workshop provided answers many practical questions.
The BBS approach is based on 20 years ‘real world’ application that has consistently led to      40-75% injury reductions within the first 12 months of its implementation.

The practical training course was both challenging and highly interactive. Rooted in a ‘results-based’ focus each action-orientated skill building exercise was designed to help the participant to achieve the safety results the participant and the organization targets. Using proven and validated techniques, the participants learnt how to apply behavior-based safety to help improve the company’s safety processes.

The aim of this interactive workshop was to provide the participants with new skills critical to the management of safety and other business activities such as quality and productivity. After attending this workshop, our employees will be fully armed with the knowledge needed to introduce and/or maintain Behavior-Based Safety in the company.

The combination of interactive presentations, hands-on exercises and open discussion groups along with real case studies, ensured that the participants got the maximum value from attending the program. Colombo Dockyard recently embarked on a Behavior Based Safety (BBS) Program in order to build a uniform and strong safety culture across company's operations and galvanize the workforce by enhancing their safety competencies in order to work towards a zero incident work place.

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Colombo Dockyard PLC is the island's leading Ship repair, Shipbuilding and Heavy Engineering facility, conveniently located inside the very Port of Colombo operates 4 graving dry-docks with a maximum capacity of 125,000 Dwt.