Safety Culture in the News

Safety Culture in the News

Implementing a sustainable process safety culture

Implementing a sustainable process safety culture

For Eastman Chemical Co., a “zero-incident mindset” is essential to safe, reliable and quality production.

In their book, “Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life,” Jason Riley and Patrick Van Horne describe the importance of identifying potential issues – also known as “bangs” – early to prevent bad things from happening. While they talk about prevention from combat perspectives, Eastman team members talk about prevention from business and operations perspectives, where the “bangs” can be explosions, fires, releases, injuries or worse – the process safety world.

Getting “left of bang” means moving from a reactive mode to become relentlessly proactive. Moving a business from “fix” – reacting post-incident – to “prevent” requires more than awareness and better tools, processes or technologies. It requires purposeful, informed behaviors. It’s a culture change. This article describes Eastman’s journey toward an improved process safety culture.