Each year, the DOE assesses SLAC’s ability to meet established Environmental Safety and Health (ES&H) standards. Based on both performance and process measures, SLAC received a rating of Outstanding from DOE for fiscal year (FY) 2002. Everyone at the Lab should be proud of his or her contributions toward achieving this rating.

Outstanding is the highest rating possible, and could not have happened without both the hard work of many individuals across the Lab and the results of improvements through SLAC’s Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS). This assessment of SLAC’s ES&H performance illustrates for DOE and Congress how well we accomplish high energy physics and synchrotron radiation research, and it will ultimately have an influence on future funding.

The Lab’s ES&H performance is based on two types of measures: outcome performance and process performance.

Outcome performance measures, also called ‘lagging indicators’, are events that have already occurred, such as the number of Lost Work Days/Total Reportable Cases measured for Accidents and Illnesses. SLAC’s lagging indicators are based on both ES&H Division activities and activities from work processes in other Divisions throughout the site.

Outcome measures for FY02 can be viewed at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/esh/isms/perfmeas/outpm02.pdf

Process performance measures, called ‘leading indicators’, reflect processes designed ‘up front’ to improve the Lab’s ES&H performance and promote accident/incident prevention, such as the completion of ISMS quarterly reviews, the development of a Behavior-Based Safety Program, or the percent of Employee Training Assessments (ETAs) completed.

Process measures for FY02 can be viewed at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/esh/isms/perfmeas/procpm02.pdf

Recent DOE assessments of SLAC’s ES&H performance are noteworthy:

FY1998: Outstanding
FY1999: Outstanding
FY2000: Outstanding
FY2001: Excellent
FY2002: Outstanding

The overall SLAC ES&H performance, taking into account the many kinds of work in process every day, is well recognized by DOE. SLAC ranks well compared to the other DOE laboratories.

Each employee can influence the upcoming FY03 DOE assessment by contributing to the achievement of our performance measures. Future TIP articles will provide details about how individuals and managers can fully participate in the ISMS process. Details about SLAC’s ISMS program, including the Safety Management System document, are available on the Web at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/esh/isms/

Following the FY02 negotiation process, outcome performance measures were approved by SLAC and DOE’s Stanford Site Office (DOE/SSO), with support from DOE’s Oakland Service Center (DOE/OAK). The measures were developed by subject matter experts from DOE/SSO, DOE/OAK and SLAC. Guidance was provided to the experts by the Performance Measures Core Team, comprised of DOE/SSO, DOE/OAK and SLAC members, and chaired by a DOE/SSO representative.

A summary table providing the results for each of the outcome performance measures in FY02 is shown in the ES&H Quarterly Report for the period July–September 2002 at: https://www-internal.slac.stanford.edu/esh/divreports/02q4report.pdf

Process performance measures were approved as described above. Although the Performance Measures Core Team provided guidance to the subject matter experts, the FY99 and FY00 measures were largely developed in response to the ISMS Phase I and Phase II final reports’ concerns and opportunities for improvement.

The FY01 and FY02 measures were designed to assess the ongoing SLAC ISMS program by conducting quarterly reviews of projects and/or activities. Future process performance measures are expected to fulfill the goal of providing leading indicators with metrics to demonstrate the health of the SLAC-wide ISMS program.