Lost Time Injury Rate:

Lost Time Incidents x 200,000
         Total Work Hours

2018 was a challenging year with new employees entering the business with generally less experience, which increased job task risk. Globally consistent hazard and risk-focused onboarding and a higher level of operational risk communication through soft-start initiatives, pre-shift information meetings, and field level risk assessments, has assisted in mitigating that risk, which can be seen in recent severity rates.

The company’s programs and simplified company field standards published in January 2018 ensured understanding of company safety expectations. Also, the full utilization of the company’s online data management system mobile app has the ability to track, trend, and identify data at-risk sites, which has helped the organization respond proactively before an injury occurs. Boart Longyear’s new lead indicator programs online saw a 93% success rate in 2018, further driving severity rates down. Over 5,000 management interactions were performed by global leadership, over 50,000 training courses were completed, and over 11,000 corrective actions were completed in the company’s online systems.

These programs have again evolved for 2019 by including the company’s first ever Critical Risk Management Program. Utilizing 10 years of taxonomy data, the organization identified six critical risks. The company will now use the mobile app for inspecting Critical Controls that must be in place to mitigate the identified risks.

Global Director of EHS and Training, Brian Maeck stated, “A lot of support for these programs have come from our operations group. Business leaders were the first ones to utilize the tools to ensure we all do our part in keeping our workforce safe. I could not be more pleased with the 2018 outcomes.”

This is not a new thought as we hear so often about ‘best practices’ and have many laws, regulations, policies, and procedures that we must adhere to. Protection, safety and security is often the underlying reason behind what we are required to do. We must abide by the law to stop at a red light not because of the threat of a ticket, but because ignoring it could bring severe consequences to ourselves, others, or property.

In the drilling industry, safety is critical. Although equipment is continually improving for productivity and safety, human supervision and interaction are still required and we know, as the English poet Alexander Pope pronounced, “To err is human...”

No one is perfect, but that is the fun of living in a world with so much variety. We would all like to think we have it all figured out, but the reality is that we always have something new to learn. And sometimes we go through an experience and immediately adjust behavior only to find that a short time later our habitual tendencies put us right back to before we learned our new-found experiential knowledge. Who hasn’t been sunburned more than once, or that blister reappears because once again we didn’t use gloves when gardening?

So, how do we learn from our mistakes and help others learn from these mistakes so they don’t go down that same possibly hazardous path? There are obviously many things that can be done, but here we will approach one way that has made a huge impact on improving safety for drilling activities around the world.

Boart Longyear’s Environmental Health and Safety team (E&HS) incorporated an incident-management database system to track, report, and promote a conscientious safe working environment. The company is not the first to use such a system, and fortunately many companies today have similar safety database systems. The premise behind the system is to reduce risk by helping people learn and change so they will practice safer behaviors and proactively address hazards before they result in an injury.

Employees are trained to report any incident, big or small, and designated employees enter all incidents, near misses, and management interactions into the incident management system.

• A gas cap is missing from a vehicle… it is typed into the system.
• A deer runs in front of the truck… even without contact, it’s entered as a near miss.
• A driller feels dehydrated and is required by his manager to go drink more water… it’s reported and entered in the system.
• An employee uses a wrench and bruises an elbow… It’s entered into the system.

A “Daily Incident Report” is emailed out daily around the world. Employees review the daily incident report to make them aware of potential hazards and in turn make needed behavioral or procedural changes—now that’s continual improvement!

Recent upgrades to the Boart Longyear incident management system have included a mobile app version for ease of use including entering data, tracking incidents, near misses, and management interactions. An easy-to-use inspections module was also recently added to the system. Information can be completed 100% in the app, with or without an internet connection, and then sent to the global collection database instantaneously or when the person gets back into reach of cellular or WIFI connections.

We don’t know anyone that would disagree on the benefits of implementing more safety procedures to keep employees and others safe. Even a precarious daredevil has built-in safety nets to give his audience thrills for yet another day. Where the incident reporting system goes beyond the safety nets is that it also captures the before-unseen information for potential harm and flags it for an immediate thoughtful response.

When a company uses a safety management system, there are many advantages to the knowledge that is collected and disseminated. The priority is safety and warning others of potential risks always helps to place harm at a well-planned distance.

Exploration and mining companies look for contractors that make safety a high priority. Lost-time incidents (LTI) are the last thing anyone wants. It’s not only about making sure people work safely, but that they can go home to their loved ones in the same physical condition as when they reported for work.

Incident management systems do cost time and money to train on, implement, and utilize. But that cost is small in comparison to saving a life and protecting investments. In the long run, safety and incident management systems increase productivity and keep operations running successfully.

At Boart Longyear, “Safety First” is a core value. The incident management system is a great way for all employees to share while making safety a daily focus. Many times the system has proven to be a useful part of the repertoire of EHS tools that keep everyone responsible, accountable and safe.  

For Boart Longyear, fostering a safety culture that emphasizes why we work safely is more than just a safety program—it’s the way employees work every day. No matter what you do, take time to make safety part of your daily activities.

We have always taken the hazards of driving very seriously. In-vehicle monitoring systems in hundreds of company vehicles have helped to reduce serious accidents by providing verbal coaching to drivers when called for. In addition, our Golden Rules of Safety, Rules of the Road and Make It Personal pocket cards to remind employees of our expectations.

But with the ever-increasing sources of distraction for drivers behind the wheel, management and the board of directors want to be even more explicit about the potential risks and repercussions of distracted driving.

The result was our first-ever Distracted Driving Policy, launched companywide in July of 2016. And it doesn’t simply prohibit texting and driving.

Under the policy, distracted driving is any activity that could divert a person’s attention away from the primary task of driving. That is because distracted driving reduces awareness, impairs decision-making ability and performance, and leads to increased risk of driver error, near-misses or incidents.

The policy applies to all employees of Boart Longyear and its subsidiaries, as well as contractors, subcontractors, temporary employees or interns, while operating a vehicle owned, leased or rented by the company, or operating a personal vehicle while traveling on or conducting company business.

Employees have responded very positively to the new mandate because the benefits are obvious. The promise of zero-tolerance enforcement notwithstanding, no violations of the policy have been reported since the rollout.

In short, everyone is aware of the potential hazards. We are all on the same page as to why distracted driving is a threat not only to our business but to people’s way of life.

The policy specifies only two electronic devices that employees are authorized to use while driving: minesite or operationally mandated two-way radios, and hands-free telephones with voice-activated dialing features for making and receiving calls.

On the other hand, employees may not under any circumstances use electronic devices of any type to perform the following activities while driving:

Even in cases where a phone or vehicle is capable of preparing or reading electronic messages “hands free,” that activity is strictly prohibited while driving. Employees are also prohibited from using headphones, ear buds or similar products while driving.

The policy also notes that “Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent — at 55 mph — of driving the length of an entire football field blind.”

Under the policy, “These prohibitions apply whether the vehicle is in motion or is stopped at an intersection or signal.” Those who really need to use their phones or other electronic devices are instructed to pull over safely to the side of the road or another safe location, apply the emergency brake and put the vehicle in park.

Because distracted driving is any activity that could divert attention away from the primary task of driving, the policy reminds employees that they must always “drive to conditions” — taking into account such things as road conditions, traffic, weather and the size and type of vehicle they are driving. They are advised not to perform even seemingly routine tasks — including adjusting a radio, CD player or MP3 player; talking to passengers; eating and drinking; and grooming — if driving conditions would make it unsafe to do so.

An internal team developed online and live training modules to reach employees throughout our company, which operates in over 30 countries. Banners and other reminders in parking lots, offices and minesites, and on the company’s intranet also reinforce the policy.

Our employees drive in all parts of the world under all sorts of conditions — from the ice roads of Baffin Island in northern Canada to the deserts of Mali. Avoiding distractions while driving is just as important on the streets of Salt Lake City or at a minesite in rural Nevada.

We are not just putting policies in place as a deterrent, but as a company we are striving to connect with our employees. We hope they will “take it home with them” and apply these principles every day.

The recently reissued Make It Personal pocket card helps to reinforce that message. Every employee is asked to sign a card and add a picture of why they stay safe.

It’s not only our concern about our own corporate fleet and the possibility that our drivers may increase that risk if they are distracted while driving. At the end of the day, they need to drive home safely to get back to what’s most important to them.