From hanger-on to trendsetter: Decision making on a major safety initiative in a steel company maintenance department

This paper describes a case study of decision making in a steelworks maintenance department, which led to the introduction of a major initiative to improve safety performance. The origin of the decision process lay, however, not with safety, but with an earlier decision to consider outsourcing the maintenance department. When it was decided that this was not feasible a new General Manager was appointed to turn around the performance of the now demoralised department. In his search for solutions and the external developments taking place in parallel he found an initiative which seemed to link his main concerns with a parallel concern for safety improvement. The philosophy behind it and the vision and strategy which was developed to carry it led to a much more participative approach, driven by clearly defined key performance indicators. Safety was chosen as the lead objective. This paper describes the development of the decision process and briefly explains its results.