An Examination of Observations and Incidence Rates for a Behavior Based Safety Program

This study examines the Behavior Based Safety (BBS) program of an oil production platform located off the coast of West Africa. The program has been in place at this 200-employee location since January 2002. All observation reports for 2003 were made available to explore relationships between behaviors recorded and incidence rates. A sample of 382 observation reports was selected from the 64,643 made during this period. Information extracted included the number and type of " safe " and " at-risk " behaviors observed, and the total number of observation reports completed. Relationships between the number of observation reports, types of behavior recorded, and four types of incidents – Injuries, Fires, Spills, and Near-Misses – were examined using an ordinal logistic regression model. Results showed that none of the regression coefficients were statistically significant (p-value>0.05); therefore, the number of observations made per day was not related to the number of incidents. With the number of daily observations ranging from 89 to 349, and each requiring approximately 15 minutes, the human-resource commitment is significant and management should give consideration to the current allocation of resources. It was noted that a limited time frame was examined and that results represent only one site of those using BBS programs.