The DuPont model

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This model was implemented by DuPont, one of the largest chemical organizations in the
world, employing more than 130,000 workers and with more than 200 factories
worldwide, 25 of them in Europe.

It emerged as a practical method and little by little it was endowed with a theoretical
methodology, gathering elements of the Theory of Excellence. It is currently managed by
its consultancy Dupont Safety Resources, with more than twenty-five years of experience,
at its headquarters in Mechelen, near Brussels.

The fundamental principle of this system is that every accident can be prevented, and if
something happens it is because there has been a management failure. Its fundamental
guideline is that no company product will be made that cannot be manufactured, used or
disposed of safely. Their slogan is: "If we can't do it safely, we won't do it".

The ten safety principles of the DuPont model on which all DuPont safety plans and
programs are based, and which have served as the basis for many other organizations to
carry out their preventive systems, are as follows:

¢ FIRST PRINCIPLE. All accidents can and should be prevented and avoided.

The goal that every company should set for itself in the prevention of occupational
hazards is to achieve zero lost-time accidents. This requires the planning of activities, the
implementation and evaluation of their results and, immediately afterwards, the carrying
out of new planning. In other words, we must always be vigilant, always dissatisfied and in
constant tension with respect to the proposed achievements. Management by objectives
will provide an answer to these questions.

However, in the workplace there are always risks; human factors, technical factors or the
conjunction of both, commonly referred to as unsafe actions, hazardous conditions and
inadequate work methods, which are the causative agents; their control is necessary,
since the damage to health and/or materials is potentially proportional to the number and
nature of those risks.

It is time to refer to Heinrich's triangle, which establishes the proportional relationship

between the number of potential or actual accidents, very serious or fatal accidents,
accidents resulting in incapacity and loss of production, accidents requiring medical
treatment and accidents requiring only first aid as a result of unsafe acts and unsafe
conditions.
In reality, the aforementioned triangle obeys two principles or maxims:

HEINRICH TRIANGLE

"Holding the risk, the probability of accident is luck."

"By controlling the risk, you control the probability of the accident."

Fatal accident

Accidents with sick leave

Medical help needed

First aid care

Unsafe acts and conditions

DEATH

30

WITH LOW DISABILITY

300

EMPLOYEE NEEDS MEDICAL HELP

3.000

FIRST AID

30.000

UNSAFE ACTIONS-UNSAFE CONDITIONS

This ratio shows that for every 30,000 unsafe acts and unsafe conditions there is 1 fatal or
very serious accident, 30 accidents resulting in work stoppage and incapacity, 300 with
medical treatment and 3,000 requiring first aid.

If the Heinrich triangle is conceived as an iceberg, it will be seen that by acting on unsafe
acts and/or unsafe conditions and reducing them to practically zero, fatal, very serious,
serious and minor accidents will also be reduced in the same proportion.36 Occupational
Risk Prevention Management Handbook
On the other hand, any dangerous condition exists because of the insecurities derived
from the intervention of the human hand, since it is man who ultimately designs the
production processes, machines and installations; he uses and manages them, and finally,
he maintains them. An example: the lack of guarding on a drive belt is certainly an unsafe
condition, but such a lack exists because someone has removed the housing or because
the machine was manufactured or designed deficiently.

¢ SECOND PRINCIPLE. Management leadership: the company's management is directly

responsible for prevention, with each level of command being directly responsible to their
immediate superiors and subordinates.

In occupational risk prevention, leadership is the responsibility of management for the

simple reason that it has the power to integrate occupational health and safety
management into the overall strategy and other company policies.

Therefore, the commitment of the management is the premise for the implementation of
any risk prevention system; a commitment that does not reside in one person,

HEINRICH TRIANGLE SEEN AS AN ICEBERG

INJURIES RESULTING IN LOST DAYS

INJURIES LEADING TO RESTRICTED DUTY

INJURIES LEADING TO MEDICAL TREATMENT

UNSAFE ACTS

UNSAFE CONDITIONS

DEFECTS IN TIDINESS AND CLEANLINESSIntegrated prevention management cascades

down through the entire vertical command structure, from management to the lowest
line manager.

It is nothing new, therefore, to attribute to the line managers, and of each area, the
execution and responsibility for concrete prevention, i.e., the application of corrective
measures and compliance with standards. This is one of the basic principles underpinning
integrated safety, without prejudice to the existence of a staff department called the
"prevention service", which, as it has no direct responsibilities or executive functions in a
specific area of activity, is intended to provide technical support, firstly to management
itself, but also to all direct managers, the Health and Safety Committee and, ultimately, to
all workers.The purpose of this department is to provide technical support, firstly to the
management itself, but also to all direct managers, to the Health and Safety Committee
and, ultimately, to all workers.

The binomial that must preside over the system is the following: the hierarchical and
command line of each area or department is responsible for and executes prevention; the
staff department or Prevention Service provides the corresponding advice.

No one knows better than management the positive impact of a good prevention system
on quality, production and, ultimately, competitiveness; their leadership is therefore
justified. If the company is a whole, its management must be integral, and occupational
health and safety is one of its most important variables, since its reference is the person
himself.

¢ THIRD PRINCIPLE. Safety is an intrinsic condition linked to work.

Each employee must assume responsibility for working safely.

While management and line managers are responsible for the implementation of
prevention, workers are the real actors and protagonists of prevention.

The worker is the one who performs his tasks safely or with insecurities; the worker also
has the obligation to carry out the employer's instructions and comply with safety
standards; the worker is the recipient of the risks and the one who suffers the damages.
Prevention is, therefore, a working condition.

All accidents and incidents are caused; if we go up in the determination of the causes and
ask ourselves the "why of the why" (tree of causes), almost always (except for the
intervention of forces foreign to the work, such as a catastrophe derived from natural
phenomena) we will reach the same conclusion: it was the people, either the operators,
the technicians or their bosses, who did not do the job correctly or simply forgot.

During visits to companies, employers usually respond to preventive requirements in the

following way: "In this company there have never been accidents; there is no danger
whatsoever, the worker is very experienced; 38 Occupational Risk Prevention
Management Manual has always worked like this and there have never been accidents."
These expressions contain in themselves a trap, which is the permanent coexistence with
risk.

To combat and prevent any situation of disinterest or negligence, or simply mere

professional recklessness arising from the confidence that inspires habitual character in
the performance of tasks, workers should not be considered as mere isolated production
agents, but teamwork will be an indispensable requirement and a motive for emulation
among one another. Thus, the goal of zero accidents will be closer every day.

¢ FOURTH PRINCIPLE. Education, information and training are an essential element for
safety.

The corresponding chapter deals exhaustively with training and information, to which this
method attaches great importance, and which for its complete adaptation to Spanish
legislation derived from the European Directives should be complemented with a
reference to the rights of participation and consultation of workers and their
representatives. It is of interest here because it is one of the basic principles on which any
preventive system must be based.

Knowledge of risks is a sine qua non condition to avoid them; any prevention program or
system must include instructions, training, general training courses, preventive campaigns,
dissemination campaigns and first aid training courses. All of them will preferably deal
with the characteristics of the prevention system and with the general and specific risks
that occur in the workplaces.

The result of this is the mentalization and awareness of occupational health and safety
with which managers and all workers without exception will face the risks arising from
hazardous conditions, unsafe acts, as well as the working and technical conditions under
which the production processes are carried out.

Training and information could be considered suficient to address particular risks;

however, prevention to be eficient needs an integral and global approach in which the
actions of many are added together to obtain a result greater than the equivalent of their
simple mathematical sum; this is only achieved through the participation and consultation
of workers and their representatives in the system designed and assumed by
management.This can only be achieved through the participation and consultation of
workers and their representatives in the system designed and assumed by management.

¢ FIFTH PRINCIPLE. Safety audits must be carried out in the company in order to verify
whether there is a real integration of prevention in the design, production and operation
phases.

This is a widely accepted and guiding principle of the prevention policy.

Safety issues must be integrated into production activities; in this way, prevention
transcends the imperfections of reactive, additive, complementary and supplementary
safety that prevailed in companies until not so long ago. Consequently, the integration of
safety in production processes begins in the design or project and is consummated in the
construction, installation and operation phases.

This is the multidisciplinary nature of prevention, for the implementation and

improvement of which design technicians, installation-construction technicians and
operating technicians must concur, advised by the staff departments or services.

Prevention (and Occupational Medicine).

This global and multidisciplinary vision requires the establishment of a risk management
system, the most important variables of which are: coexistence of enforcement and
advisory bodies, operability and implementation of risk analysis techniques, and
enforceability of corrective measures. For verification of system performance, security
audits should be performed periodically.

¢ SIXTH PRINCIPLE. The observed deficiencies must be corrected urgently, either by

modificating equipment and facilities, or by establishing new working methods and
prevention standards, or by improving worker training on operating practices to
encourage safe behaviors.

Management must consider programmed management by objectives; that is, it is

necessary to assume and design a prevention program. This program will consist of
periodic visits and inspections to work stations in order to detect deficiencies in the
facilities and equipment or unsafe practices; all with the aim of correcting the deficiencies
observed and adopting the corresponding safety standards and safe operating practices or
operating procedures.

With respect to technical prevention standards, it is necessary to know, comply with and
enforce compliance with all existing legal provisions on occupational health and safety.

But here, more than legal rules, we must refer to the internal rules issued by the
companies that are located within the coordinates that go beyond the prevention
provided for in the current regulations; these rules must be clear, transparent and
mandatory.40 Occupational Risk Prevention Management Handbook

¢ SEVENTH PRINCIPLE. All accidents and incidents must be investigated. All dangerous
actions and unsafe practices must be inspected and corrected.

All occupational accidents involve traumatic elements, mainly for the worker, whose
physical integrity or health is impaired, but also for the company. Its consequences or
results entail serious economic losses, in addition to other unfavorable social, family,
corporate image, etc., impacts.
Hence, every accident must be investigated to ascertain the original causes of the accident
in order to take the appropriate measures to prevent its recurrence and, in turn, to
control the remaining risk situations that could give rise to accidents or incidents of similar
characteristics.

This investigation shall be carried out by means of simple and understandable techniques
that are capable of reproducing or simulating the accident a posteriori and whose ultimate
finding must be, in any case, to detect the immediate and basic causes or antecedents
that have provoked it.

No less important is the control and evaluation of risks due to serious incidents, even if
they have not caused injuries, inasmuch as these, even if they do not involve actual losses,
involve a potential loss that we know will materialize or become a reality in certain
standardized proportions when such control does not exist.

Risk control techniques also need to be simple, effective and reliable.

A management audit provides the company's status in relation to the Risk Prevention
System; technical audits, safety inspections and checklists provide the company's status in
relation to occupational health and safety for a work center, a production line, a machine
or a specific risk.A management audit provides the company's status in relation to the Risk
Prevention System; technical audits, safety inspections and checklists provide the
company's status in relation to the occupational health and safety of a work center, a
production line, a machine or a specific risk.

As a result of these risk control techniques, deficiencies are found that must be corrected
through corrective measures that must be put into practice.

¢ EIGHTH PRINCIPLE. Safety outside the workplace and in the workplace environment is
just as important as safety in the workplace.

The aim is to bring the quality of working life closer to prevention. The field of prevention
cannot be reduced to simply preventing occupational accidents and diseases, from the
point of view of guaranteeing the physical integrity of workers; it must be extended to
working conditions in order to be able to work in an environment of reasonable comfort
and health. Therefore, in addition to purely technical factors, other psychosocial and
organizational factors must also be taken into account:

- Ergonomic design of tasks, equipment and work environment.

- The impact of work schedules and work rhythms.

- Stress reduction, whether due to physical or mental stress or psychosocial factors.

- The whole set of organizational improvements projected from an integral perspective.

This broadening of the concept of prevention includes aspects related to the personal
singularities of each worker, which translate into the adaptation and adaptation of the
characteristics of the work to the qualities and psycho-physical characteristics of the
worker, in the humanization of working conditions and in the qualitative improvement of
the working environment, trying to eliminate the negative consequences of the repetitive
and monotonous nature of the work.This broadening of the concept of prevention
includes aspects related to the personal singularities of each worker, which translate into
the adaptation and adaptation of work characteristics to the psycho-physical qualities and
characteristics of the worker, in the humanization of working conditions and in the
qualitative improvement of the work environment, trying to eliminate the negative
consequences of the repetitive and monotonous nature of the activities.

The application of the principles of ergonomics to prevention is becoming more and more
a reality, since a global and multidisciplinary approach to working conditions cannot be
alien to the improvement of productivity and competitiveness. This is the last step in
prevention, which consists of well-being and quality of working life.

¢ NINTH PRINCIPLE. Order and cleanliness are fundamental to risk control. Moreover,
preventing these trivial or moderate risks is good business.

We have already seen above when analyzing Heinrich's triangle that, according to this
formulation, it can be seen that for every 30,000 unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, many
of them derived from a lack of order and cleanliness, there is one fatal or very serious
accident, 30 accidents resulting in termination of employment and disability, 300 with
medical treatment and 3,000 requiring first aid.

Many reasons justify the need to control risks in order to avoid accidents and occupational
diseases, while at the same time improving working conditions: legal reasons, inasmuch as
the company must comply with the provisions of current regulations on the prevention of
occupational hazards; human reasons, inasmuch as the employer must take care to avoid
any harm to the people who work for him and in his area of work; social reasons,
inasmuch as the employer must give back to the people who work for him and in his area
of work.There are social reasons, in that the employer must return the worker to the
company in the conditions in which he hired him; economic reasons, aimed at reducing
the losses caused by occupational accidents, occupational illnesses and material damage.
Here we are interested in this last aspect, the purely economic aspect of security and
prevention. The control of risks, even if they are derived from apparent and small
deficiencies, such as those linked to order and cleanliness, is "good business", because the
same can be the cause of a certain volume of accidents, and the economic losses derived
from injuries and material deterioration are much higher than the cost of safety and
health measures, the application of which would have avoided them. In this regard, we
refer to the detailed analysis of the cost of occupational accidents described in the
previous chapter.

¢ TENTH PRINCIPLE. People are the key element for the success of security programs.
Management's responsibility must be complemented by suggestions from workers, who
must be involved in maintaining safe workplaces.

This principle is particularly important when an organization undertakes new tasks or

tasks or introduces new technologies. Prevention is not static, it is dynamic, since it must
adapt to the characteristics of the new production processes; the replacement of
machines, equipment and components, already obsolete, by others of advanced
technology, or the mere substitution of some of their components to achieve an
improvement in production may involve the appearance of new risks that are unknown in
principle, but that through the corresponding analysis must be identified.The substitution
of some of its components to achieve an improvement in production may involve the
appearance of new risks that in principle are unknown, but through the corresponding
analysis it is necessary to proceed to their identification. In this regard, the contributions
of the worker operators of the jobs are particularly significative.

Once the risks have been detected and identified, the company's management has the
obligation to inform the workers about them, who must accept the necessary
complementary training in the safe development of their activities.

The application of all these principles in the DuPont model is complemented by a series of
techniques and tools and also by a series of actions aimed at contractors and
subcontractors. It should be noted that this method has been successfully applied in high-
risk sectors (e.g., the chemical sector) with a well-defined personnel policy and economic
conditions that favor a certain investment in safety and training during the first two or
three years of implementation. The system can only be implemented, due to acquired
rights, with a license granted by the consulting company of the corporate group, which
does not imply that the general principles referred to above and on which it is based
cannot be applied to companies in general. Integrated prevention management.