Best
Practice Title:
Understanding, Assessing and Measuring a Culture of
Operational Excellence
Facility:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Point of Contact:
Cindy Caldwell, 509-371-7831,
cynthia.caldwell@pnnl.gov
Brief Description of Best Practice:
In 2010 Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory (PNNL) implemented an innovative,
holistic process to understand, assess and measure cultural
attributes and improve operational performance. PNNL
participated in the EFCOG safety culture pilot and developed
the methodology using the suite of DOE/EFCOG Safety culture
products available at
http://www.efcog.org/wg/ism_sctt/index.htm.
PNNL's synergistic approach
integrates Voluntary Protection Program, Integrated Safety
Management and ISO 14001 principles into a single set of
organizing principles that address the hearts, minds, and
actions of staff and provide a single platform for
continuous improvement that enables enhanced mission
execution through
operational excellence.
PNNL's vision
of operational excellence is that Environment,
Safety, and Health (ES&H) functions will be embedded into
the Laboratory's business processes and universally adopted.
Looking beyond "safety programs" or "environmental
programs," PNNL's intention is to excel in engaging all levels of
operational management, resulting in outstanding research
and development,
while maintaining our commitment to safety, health,
and environmental stewardship.
This best practice is
presented as an example that other sites can tailor to meet
their individual needs.
Why the best practice was
used:
PNNL developed the best practice to achieve the "next level"
of performance through a culture of Operational Excellence.
PNNL expects that the results of this holistic approach will
simultaneously stimulate excellence in all business
objectives (such as safety, environment, quality,
productivity, sustainability, and profitability) and better
position the Laboratory to continue to deliver world-class
science, while maintaining our commitment to safety, health,
and environmental stewardship.
What are the benefits of the best practice:
The culture assessment process
provides a platform to inform senior leadership of
organizational strengths and weaknesses in the broad areas
of leadership, engagement, continuous improvement and risk
management and develop a laboratory level strategy to
address cultural barriers and act upon predictive
indicators.
What lessons learned/keys to success are associated
with the best practice:
There is no simple recipe
to understanding culture. PNNL's
approach involved thoughtful study and
preparation and was highly dependent upon establishing
cultural attributes that reflected the values, beliefs and
behaviors that are embraced by the Laboratory.
Senior leadership commitment to setting expectations through
a strong vision and providing governance of the cultural
assessment process was critical to success. The process was not
owned by Environmental Safety & Health and was socialized
with leadership across the organization to assure horizontal
integration.
How the success of the Best
Practice was measured:
An
operational culture measure was integrated into the
Laboratory's performance assurance system and is used to
assess Laboratory level performance and identify areas of
risk.
1.
Establishing and communicating
safety culture expectations
The first step to understanding
our culture was establishing the framework of beliefs and
behaviors that reflect the Laboratory's expectation for
operating to achieve simultaneous excellence. This document
was named PNNL's Credo for Operational Excellence.The attributes of the Credo for Operational
Excellence focus on four themes: leadership, risk
management, continuous improvement, and engagement.
Note: In addition to following the EFCOG guidance, a
separate theme of risk management was added to the model to
provide emphasis and focus on our ability to control risk
and reduce the likelihood of error.
2.
Identifying data streams and indicators based on cultural
expectations
Objectives and indicators
associated with each of the four operational excellence
themes were further developed to facilitate analysis. The
multilevel nature of culture requires a broad range of
indicators, some of which may be more subjective than
others. There is no simple
indicator to measure the state of organizational culture.
PNNL used a broad range of indicators and data, including
observation, interviews and surveys, as well as workflow
metrics and Lab-level indicators. Example indicators used to
evaluate the Lab's culture include:
-
Staff survey results, including
VPP.
The results from the Lab's VPP's staff survey in FY 2009,
2010, and 2011, generated more than 500 comments focused on
selected themes as well as staff sentiment on 20 survey
questions.
-
Focus Group Interviews.
A series of focus groups provided detailed feedback in the
areas of balancing safety, quality, cost and production,
self disclosure of errors to continuously improve, reward
and recognition, leadership visibility and accountability.
-
Performance metrics.
Metrics and laboratory level indicators such as integrated
operations concerns closed within 30 days, ES&H program risk
index, project management measures of risk and quality, and
lessons learned % unique readership were integrated into the
model.
3.
Analyzing the results and establishing an improvement
strategy
Input from measures,
indicators and data streams were comprehensively analyzed. A
Laboratory level strategy was developed to address cultural
barriers and act upon predictive indicators in order to
achieve the Laboratory's aspirations for operational
excellence and ultimately produce outstanding Science
& Technology.
