Corporate Safety Indicators

Since 2006, the Department analyzed its Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS) data to assess the underlying risk of six major events, which align very well with the Strategic Outcomes:

• Potential Offsite Loss of Control of Radiological and Contaminated Material
• Potential Offsite Environmental or Public Impact (Non-Radiological)
• Potential for Inadvertent Criticality
• Potential for Fire or Explosion
• Potential for Radiation or IH Exposure
• Potential for Injuries

Under this approach, DOE corporate safety performance is defined in terms of the Department’s ability to avoid such unacceptable outcomes. Poor performance in preventing these outcomes would likely indicate serious systematic failures and impact the Department’s success. The Department determined Corporate Safety Indicators should:

Each Corporate Safety Indicator is based on a repeatable, transparent evaluation of specific safety performance data obtained from a corporate safety database such as the Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS). This database is administered by the Office of Health, Safety and Security at DOE Headquarters, with data provided directly by the Field.

Since the goal of the Corporate Safety Indicator process is to measure the Department’s ability to avoid an unacceptable outcome, and not simply count each time an outcome occurred, each Corporate Safety Indicator requires its own set of specific performance measures that are relevant (i.e., can be seen as a predictor or precursor) to each Corporate Indicator. This report does not seek to comment on the indicators, but will leave the interpretations to the reader.