|
The health and safety of our employees is of paramount importance. That is why we strive to maintain a comprehensive health and safety program for our employees, which encompasses accident prevention and wellness. Pinnacle West offers employees an array of programs geared towards wellness and ergonomic health. This section describes the programs in detail.
Safety and Health Advisory Team
The Safety and Health Advisory Team is responsible for providing cross-functional strategic direction and leadership on company-wide health and safety issues. The team consists of safety and health professionals from each business unit of the company.
The team is responsible for the development and updating of the corporation’s Health and Safety Policy and Management Plan, defining Critical Success Indicators and the creation of meaningful Health and Safety Initiatives. Each team member represents his or her respective business unit and communicates health and safety issues between the team and the facilities. The team makes recommendations to EHS Vice-President Edward Fox on all matters requiring executive oversight.
The team is supported by two different issue teams, a Prevention Team and a Compliance Team. The Prevention team advances programs and practices that promote employee wellness and accident prevention. The Compliance team addresses regulatory compliance matters.
Joint Health and Safety Committees
The Accident Prevention Manual (APM) Rules/Revision Committee is comprised of a group of company and Local IBEW employees which meet to review the safety rules and any employee requests for revision.
The committee, which is indicative of the partnership shared between the company and IBEW, in addition to fielding these requests will take individual sections of the manual and review them to determine if updating is necessary.
Once a review is completed and change is deemed necessary, the manual is updated and brought to the committee for final discussion and signature. After the committee has signed off on the rule it goes to the Safety and Health Advisory Team and the IBEW Executive Board for review and acceptance.
Worker Communications
Pinnacle West and APS employees receive updated communication on health and safety issues from a variety of sources. From one-on-one communications to departmental safety meetings to daily electronic and monthly newsletters, employees enjoy an abundance of health and safety information.
Safety is the overriding value of all aspects of our business. We will continually provide a safe and healthy environment for our employees, our customers and the community. We demand safe work behavior, practices, design and systems.
In 2004, our employees exceeded the previous company safety record. For the fourth consecutive year, our employees have reduced the number of preventable recordable injuries. A preventable injury is one that could have been controlled by the actions (or lack of actions) by the company or its employee(s). A non-preventable injury is one in which the company and its employee(s) had no control, such as sitting at a red light and being rear-ended.
The 70 preventable recordables recorded at year-end are significantly below 2003’s 88 preventable recordables, which had stood previously as the company’s best safety performance.
Contributing to the new safety record are strong performances in several company organizations. For example, Energy Delivery’s 35 recordables are eight fewer than last year and four fewer than in 2002, the group’s previous best safety performance.
Cholla Power Plant employees reduced their number of preventable recordables by more than half – seven this year compared to 15 in 2003. Four Corners employees decreased their number of preventable recordable injuries by almost two-thirds, with six preventable recordables this year versus last year’s 17.
The safety performance at three of APS’ fossil fuel power plants is setting an example for the rest of the company and establishing a standard for the industry as well.
The West Phoenix (23 years), Ocotillo (22 years) and Yucca (20 years) plants each have gone at least 20 years without a lost-time accident. (A lost-time accident is one in which an employee has to miss at least one day of work due to an on-the-job injury.)
Twenty-plus years without a lost-time accident in any industry would be impressive. To put it in perspective, the 23 years at West Phoenix without a lost-time accident translates to about 2.1 million worker hours. According to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the national average is 320,000 worker hours and 5.8 years per lost-time accident.
While the 20-year thresholds stand out, APS’ safety performance at all of its fossil-fired power plants is impressive. In 2003, for example, APS had just two lost-time accidents while the national average was 7.3 incidents, according to the EEI.
The company closed 2004 with its best year in safety performance over the past 20 years as measured by OSHA recordable injuries. Employees reported 98 OSHA recordable injuries in 2004.
Accidents occur for a variety of reasons, preventable and non-preventable. The focus of the strategic effort at our company has always been concerning those injuries that are considered preventable. By focusing on those incidents in which management and/or the employee have control over the events leading to an accident we will and have achieved OSHA recordable injury reduction. The following is a five-year profile of preventable events that had been reported by company employees.
The company is concerned with the adverse trend in lost-time injuries as indicated in the table above. Statistically, there is an indication that while the overall injuries are reducing, the severity of those that occur are increasing. The team is using a modified Hiendrich Safety Pyramid model of reported employee events to monitor these upstream indicators.
The Safety Pyramid for 2004 helps the company understand that the reporting of close call events is disproportionate to the injuries reported. We are pleased to see the total number of close-call events being reported is continuously increasing. When close-call events are reported, the company can evaluate potentially unsafe situations and make corrections before more serious events occur. The team has determined the best way to reduce the number of injury accidents and their severity is to place a continued emphasis on close call reporting and trending. Based on developing trends of precursors to injuries, appropriate action can and will be assigned to prevent recurrence of all events.
Return to Employees
|
