Academic literature on the topic 'Positive self-similar Markov processes'

This chapter discusses investment benchmarking and measurement bias in hedge fund performance. A good benchmark should be unambiguous, investible, measurable, appropriate, reflective of current investment opinions, specified in advance, and accountable. Additionally, a good benchmark should be simple, easily replicable, comparable, and representative of the market that the benchmark is trying to capture. Several biases, such as database selection bias, survivorship bias, style classification bias, backfill bias, self-reporting bias, and return-smoothing bias exist that impede the process of creating a benchmark. These biases increase the difficulty of studying hedge fund returns and managerial skill. However, most of the academic research on hedge fund returns report positive alphas for hedge funds.

The wage of an individual is observed only when he/she is employed. However, getting employment requires two decisions. First, an individual has to decide to participate in the labour market, and second, an employer must decide to hire that individual. Since female labour market participation often differs from that of men, and employers’ decisions to hire may also be influenced by gender, it is appropriate to account for this double selection process. This study uses the latest household survey in Ghana to estimate gender wage gaps by correcting for this double selection process. We find that the average total gender wage gap is positive and significant irrespective of the sample selection correction method used. Our results indicate that women on average receive lower wages than men. Irrespective of the type of selection method used, our findings suggest that almost all the wage gap is a result of differences in returns, with only a small part coming from differences in observables. We find that the gender wage gap is smaller among formal wage employees and the gap decreases as education level increases. Although our findings indicate a similar trend in the wage gap across all specifications, the magnitude of the gap is sensitive to the choice of the model. This points to the need to be cautious about the choice of sample selection correction used to analyse gender wage gaps.

This chapter deals with LOHAS in the context of “community-building” and the formation of a collective conscience. LOHAS is ultimately a narrative about how to change the world using consumer culture. The lens of globalization is used to examine how LOHAS attempts, on the one hand, to overcome a legacy of anthropocentrism, Eurocentrism, cultural and economic imperialism, and Westernization in capitalism, while, on the other hand, self-consciously reinforcing the capitalist imperative to sell more and different things to more people. As a market-based movement and as a claim to a reformatory effort, LOHAS is only as successful as the quantity of consumers and producers that support its premises. With its sweeping global agenda, LOHAS texts try to position the concept as a nonpartisan movement, one based on commonalities rather than differences. This chapter is a study of the rise of community and collectivity in LOHAS culture, which is chiefly occurring through mediated means, particularly through social media. It historicizes LOHAS within social movements, examining the importance of media and the central role of communication in democratic efforts. This sets the stage for a closer look at the ways in which media and market enable and disable participation in the communication process. An important part of this is the working of ideology in the construction of truth claims.

Abstract In this position paper, our goal is to argue the need for specific software development practices to early-stage startups. In order to reach this goal, we discuss the consequences of innovative and market-driven contexts, which are two of the key elements when describing software startups. We also argue that these practices could be applied to innovative initiatives within established companies since they share similar characteristics and challenges as those from startups.

The article examines self-similar properties of real telecommunications network traffic data over a wide range of time scales. These self-similar properties are very different from the properties of traditional models based on Poisson and Markov-modulated Poisson processes. Simulation with stochastic and long range dependent traffic source models is performed, and the algorithms for buffer overflow simulation for finite buffer single server model under self-similar traffic load SSM/M/1/B are explained. The algorithms for modeling fixedlength sequence generators that are used to simulate self-similar behavior of wireless IP network traffic are developed and applied. Numerical examples are provided, and simulation results are analyzed.

This chapter describes Ravenwood's position in the higher education market and the kinds of persuasive arguments that members of the community deploy to recruit new students every year. Corporatization in the university has brought the logic and language of markets to these processes, which align with the Jeffersonian paradigm of education and create a somewhat rigid interpretation of institutional mission and risk. Diversification of student enrollment is a safety net from fiscal risk but also reflects the potential watering down of institutional brand. Administrators are thus constantly balancing contradictory tensions in their attempts to secure fiscal security without sacrificing the mission or brand of the institution. Individual counselors also tackle similar propositions within the context of their own careers.

A new management trend of the global information technology (IT) application—virtualization—has appeared in contemporary management. Virtualization is a process of enterprise transformation (using IT) that allows breaking through various limitations of organizational constrains. Virtualization changes dramatically the image of business, especially of small and medium enterprises (SMEs); by adopting the concept of virtualization, they can become fully competitive and may effectively operate in the global market. Barriers of scale between SMEs and large organizations disappear. This new type of organization is often called in the literature a modern organization or virtual organization. Organizations of this type have an effective decision-making process and function based on economic criteria. Consequently, their opportunities to grow and compete in the global market are greater than for traditional SMEs. Hence, the thesis: virtualization allows individual organizations to enter strategic cooperative alliances with other similar businesses. Such virtual organizations have a competitive position in the global market.

The use of agile methodologies like SCRUM is seen by companies in the software engineering field as a strategic necessity for their competitiveness, which makes them more reactive and dynamic in an increasingly demanding and competitive international market. One of the critical factors in the implementation of a SCRUM environment is the set-up of teams that are simultaneously homogeneous and composed of the best collaborators for each SCRUM role. In this sense, this study describes the modeling process and presents the implementation of a decision support system that can contribute to improving the process of assigning an agile team simultaneously considering the technical and social skills of employees. The results of the study allowed testing the application considering different competencies associated to each Agile position, the impact that the attribution process suffers from oscillations in the process of evaluation and self-evaluation, and the impact in terms of the performance of the inclusion of new collaborators and criteria comparison.

This chapter explores interview techniques. The use of interviews in social science expanded during the twentieth century. Research interviews with industrial, commercial, and market objectives have also contributed to their development as one of the main methods of social inquiry. The extensive use of interviews as a means of investigation and self-representation in modern society has contributed to their position as the ‘characteristic format for personal narratives’. While positivists conceive interviewers as miners whose main objective is data collection, post-positivists view them as travellers who unravel the intersubjective process of knowledge construction. These different epistemological conceptions of interview research have led to the development of various techniques. The chapter then looks at different types of interviews, including structured/directed interview, semi-structured/semi-directive interview, and in-depth/non-directive interview.

This chapter studies the Hawaiʻi tourism industry's efforts to market Hawaiʻi as a multicultural paradise where positive racial experiences could be bought and sold. Although Hawaiʻi had long been a draw for wealthy tourists, jet travel, which arrived the same year as statehood, allowed a larger and broader cohort of mainland Americans to vacation in the islands, which the tourism industry portrayed as a quasi-foreign space where mainlanders could experience social amity and forge multicultural self-identities in the comfort of a safe, American milieu. In the process, the chapter argues that tourism helped turn race and racial tolerance into saleable—if intangible—commodities. Meanwhile, a massive military rest and recreation (RR) program in Hawaiʻi for combat soldiers during the Vietnam War exposed the limits of global mutual understanding and racial tolerance. Instead of encouraging its consumers to learn from Hawaiʻi's mixed multicultural society, RR in Hawaiʻi upheld the nuclear family and sought to insulate servicemen from the wider world. The tourism industry epitomized the ways in which much of the liberal racial discourse in the post-civil rights era conflated race, culture, and ethnicity, and in the process, depoliticized all three.

The key to autonomous mobile-robot navigation is effective path planning and accurate self-localisation. The lack of self-localisation or inaccurate self-localisation makes any nonholonomic autonomous mobile robot blind in a navigation environment and will deter the robot’s ability to complete path following. In the last several years, many different systems have been considered for self-localisation, from using visual odometry to using a satellite triangulation method, better known as a global position system or GPS. All of these have benefits and detriments, the solution proposed here endeavors to offer more benefits than detriments, utilizing a novel method for self-localisation, employing a dual bearing finder digital compass configuration to resolve the relative location of an autonomous nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot. To facilitate the novel hybrid method, the utilization of the mobile robot’s multiple sensors, dual wheel quadrature shaft encoders and the digital compasses are required. To support the hardware requirements of the novel localisation methodology, the cutting edge technology of a 200 MHz 32-bit ARM 9 processor on a GHI ChipworkX module are employed. The software architecture is based on the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework 4.1 using C# and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Without the inputs from the dual compass configuration it would not be possible to solve the relative position of the mobile robot analytical. Without the dual compass configuration only a numeric solution is possible, which decelerates the localisation process. The mobile robot’s digital compasses are marked with unnatural markers, for faster identification by an overhead camera. Using the overhead camera tracking results and comparing the telemetry collected by the mobile robot, using the analytical equations, the validation of this method is proven. The most fundamental part of implementing a successful maneuverable nonholonomic mobile robot is accurate self-localisation telemetry. The biggest concern about using a self-localisation technique is the amount of computation it will require to complete the task. Ideally, having an analytical solution to position offers the benefit of a single solution, where the numeric solution has many solutions and requires more time and computation to derive the solution. The benefit of the dual compass configuration is that it offers an analytical solution to the hybrid model that utilizes quadrature shaft encoders and digital compasses. This methodology evidently presents a novel approach where visual odometry is not possible.

Within the commercial sector, energy managers and building operators have a large impact over their organizations’ energy use. However, they mostly focus on technology solutions and retrofits, rather than human or corporate behaviors, and how to change them. This gap in targeted commercial sector research and behavioral interventions provides a great opportunity which is currently not being addressed. This paper presents a field research pilot where an empirical behavior change research process was applied and taught to commercial energy users in Ontario, Canada. This course served to fill an identified market gap and to improve commercial energy managers’ literacy in behavioral science theory and techniques. A needs assessment identified a clear gap in behavioral training for energy managers, and high interest in the course further proved out the market opportunity for professional training on how to design, implement and evaluate behavior change interventions. Evaluation results identified positive feedback in terms of course reaction, self-reported learning and behavioral outcomes, and tangible results when course participants returned to work to apply their learnings. Evaluation results suggest that such training fills a vital gap in the current Strategic Energy Management (SEM) landscape, and could unlock significant savings in the commercial energy sector.

While creative ideas can lead to market success and payoff, they are also associated with high risks and uncertainties. One way to reduce these uncertainties is to provide decision makers with valuable information about the innovative potential and future success of an idea. Even though several metrics have been proposed in the literature to evaluate the creativity of early design-stage ideas, these metrics do not provide information about the future product success or market favorability of new product ideas. Hence, existing metrics fail to link the creativity of early-stage ideas to their future market favorability. In order to bridge this gap, the current work proposes a new metric to estimate early design-stage ideas’ favorability and analyzes its relationship with current creativity metrics. A data-mining driven method to assess the future favorability of new product ideas using customers’ reviews of current market products that shared similar features with the new ideas of interest is presented. The results suggest that the new product idea favorability is positively correlated with relative creativity metrics and existing product market favorability ratings. This method can be used to help designers gain a better insight into the creativity and market favorability potential of new product ideas in early design-stages via a systematic approach; hence, helping reduce the risks and uncertainties associated with early-phase ideas during the screening and selecting process.

The need for enhanced engagement of school students for better behavioral outcomes in line with scientific learning and acquisition of science process skills have continually incited educators to strategize innovative teaching approaches. Meanwhile, innovations and research from the scientific community has consistently been prioritized, demanding highly skilled STEM labor in the global market, henceforth challenging educators to brace the next generation with high proficiency in STEM fields. The research study focuses on an out of school approach that caters to the industrial demands in STEM workforce, henceforth acquainting the high school students with research methodology for improving their technical efficiency and intellectual capacity in problem solving and critical thinking. The study program was conducted on 208 students from public schools in Qatar, who participated in 68 research projects, each project being engaged by a group students during a period of 2 months at Qatar University research laboratories. The performance of participants were analyzed by mixed methods implementing both quantitative data based on questionnaires and qualitative data based on feedback interviews from research mentors, schoolteachers and the participant students. The results of the program yielded positive outcomes from the stakeholders as the school students gained competences exhibited by under-graduate or graduate students like research self-efficacy, research skills and aspirations for scientific careers, accomplishing the objectives of the program. This study program henceforth was successful in bridging the gap between high school and university, as the participant students had an advantage in confidence over their peers in university laboratories and technical writing assignments.

The production of LDPE may require huge heavy-duty reciprocating compressors to withstand the loads, deriving from the operating pressures, to satisfy the growing needs of the market. Safety, Performance and Reliability are normal expectations and therefore need a thorough evaluation of the specific service. The machine selection is based on positive experience in similar applications and cylinder performance. The cylinders are special pressure vessels, whose design and construction have to consider the extreme internal pressures and the process gas. The design must foresee all possible failure modes of each component, to have safe and smooth operation, thanks to innovative methods of modeling and simulation, like FEM and CFD, important for the design of cylinder parts. Valves are simulated by mathematical models optimizing performance, to reach a correct mechanical behavior with minimum energy consumption and ensuring reliable operation. The available technological improvements are a starting point, resulting from the developments of manufacturers and long experience of End Users. The pulsation and vibration of the piping are usually investigated to keep the plant in operation without failures. Many cylinder components are exposed to pressures fluctuating between suction and discharge and therefore to high fatigue loads. To reach high endurance capabilities they have to be pre-compressed to keep them operating under compressive stresses whenever possible. Special materials, shrink fitting and auto-frettage procedures are usually required. The operation is the stage where all the parameters have to be kept under control and incipient problems have to be identified to minimize shut-downs and arrange various maintenance works. Automation, monitoring and diagnostic systems complete the efforts of operators to afford high safety levels, with increased availability and optimized maintenance interventions. The continuing development of technology will help to challenge performance and high capacity demand of future plants.

A poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic chip-based cartridge was fabricated by sandwiching commercial dialysis membrane and inserting fused-silica capillary into the end of channel according to the principle and structure of a commercial fused-silicon capillary-based cartridge, which can adapt to an IEF analyzer for isoelectric focusing with whole channel imaging detection (IEF-WCID). The novel design of sandwiching membrane in this chip not only eliminated the unfavorable hydrodynamic pressure, leading to poor IEF reproducibility, but made the sample injection much easy. Thus the reproducibility of analysis was very good. The prepared microfluidic chips were applied for qualitative and quantitative analysis of proteins. The six pI markers in the range of 3–10 were separated by IEF under the optimized conditions. The pH gradients exhibited good linear by plotting the pI versus peak position, and the correlation coefficient reached to 0.9994 and 0.9995. The separation of more complicated human hemoglobin control and myoglobin sample could be achieved. By comparison with the separation efficiency obtained on the microfluidic chip and commercial cartridge, the results were similar, which indicates the capillary cartridge may be replaced with the cost-efficient PDMS microfluidic chip. It is anticipated the high throughput analysis can be easily performed on this microfluidic chip patterned multi-channels. The techniques of capillary electrophoresis (CE) have been extensively explored for the chip-based separation. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) as one of high-resolution CE techniques has been widely applied for the separation of zwitterionic biomolecules, such as proteins and peptides. After the samples were focused at their corresponding pIs, the focused zones were mobilized to pass through the detection point for obtaining an electropherogram. This single-point detection imposes extensive restriction for chip-based IEF because a mobilization process requires additional time and lowers resolution and reproducibility of the separation [1]. An alternative is whole-column imaging detection developed by Pawliszyn et al [2] is an ideal detection method for IEF because no mobilization is required, which avoids the disadvantages as mentioned previously. Most microfluidic systems could be fabricated in glass/silicon or polymers in which the channels are defined using photolithography and micromachining. Mao and Pawliszyn [3] have developed a method for IEF on an etched quartz chip following whole-channel imaging detection (WCID). Ren et al [4] presented an integrated WCID system on glass microfluidic chip. However, these materials have some disadvantages such as expensive and fragile and so on. An attractive alternative for fabrication of microfluidic devices is using poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) as material, which has unique properties such as nontoxic, optical transparent down to 280 nm, elastomeric, hydrophobic surface chemistry Yao et al. [5] designed the glass/PDMS microchip integrated whole-column fluorescence imaging detection for IEF of R-phycoerythrin. Our preliminary studies have successfully developed a PDMS chip-based cartridge for IEF-WCID. It is due to hydrodynamic flow between two reservoirs that the focused zones were mobilized, thus gave poor reproducibility and difficulty in sample infusion. As membranes have been integrated into microchips for microdialysis, protein digestion, solid-phase extraction, desalting, pumping and so on, it could minimize hydrodynamic flow by using membranes as a filter. Although a simple PDMS chip-based cartridge has been successfully fabricated in our labs according to the principle of commercial capillary-based cartridge, it is difficult to introduce the sample into channel for IEF-WCID. As the vacuum was applied in one end of channel for infusing of solution into channel, the lifetime of this chip-based cartridge is shortened. Additionally, the hydrodynamic flow is occurred due to the different heights of anolyte and catholyte in two reservoirs, respectively. The IEF separation was deteriorated by the infusion of anolyte or catholyte, thus leading to poor reproducibility of IEF-WCID analysis. Similar to the hollow fiber in the commercial capillary-based cartridge in which it is aimed to separate the sample in the capillary and electrolytes in the reservoirs, porous membrane was integrated into PDMS chips for decrease of hydrodynamic flow [6]. As a result, integration of dialysis membrane is considered into the design of our new chip-based cartridge. Up to now, many approaches have been described to integrate membranes into glass/quartz or polymeric microfluidic chips. A simple method is direct incorporation by gluing or clamping commercial flat membranes. A major problem of this method is sealing, otherwise, a phenomenon of leakage around the membranes is always occurred due to the capillary force. A novel approach of sandwiching dialysis membrane was developed as schematically indicated in Figure 1. After optimizing IEF conditions, the separation of pI markers was performed on the obtained PDMS microfluidic chip. As exhibited in Figure 2a, six pI markers could be well separated on the PDMS chips patterned the channel of 100 μm deep, 100 μm wide by IEF-WCID. All the peaks were sharp and symmetric, indicating that both EOF and analytes adsorption were completely suppressed by the dynamic coating of PVP. The plots of peak position versus pI of these pI markers suggested good linearity of pH gradient (as shown in Figure 2b). The linear correlation coefficient was 0.9995 (n = 6). As expected to the capillary-based cartridge, the PDMS microfluidic chips could be applied for qualitative and quantitative analysis of proteins. Figure 3a exhibited that human hemoglobin control AFSC contains four known isoforms (HbA, HbF, HbS and HbC) mixed with two pI marker 6.14 and 8.18 were well separated on the PDMS chip by IEF-WCID, indicating the strong separation ability of chip similar to the commercial capillary-based cartridge. According to the linearity of pH gradient, these four isoforms with the pIs of 7.0, 7.1, 7.3 and 7.5, respectively, could be detected. An unknown isoform in human hemoglobin control marked asterisk in Figure 3A observed besides the definite four isoforms A, F, S and C. The myoglobin from horse heart contains two isoforms, whose pIs are 6.8 and 7.2, respectively. It can be seen from Figure 3b that these two isoforms were separated on PDMS chip by IEF-WCID. The peak 1 and 2 could be assigned to the two isoforms according to their pI. The pI of unknown peak marked asterisk could be measured to 6.25.

Abstract This paper will discuss the Managed Pressure Directional Drilling fit-for-purpose solution deployed to meet drilling challenges in Mexico's offshore Homol field. This innovative solution integrates a new state-of-the-art Rotary Steerable System (RSS) with Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) technology. Drilling hazards such as the ballooning effect due to drilling plastic formations, losses, wellbore instability, and stuck pipe were effectively mitigated, and improved drilling performance with reduced NPT was delivered compared to other directional drilling systems. The solution requires the integration of two highly technical disciplines, MPD and Directional Drilling. Hence, a Joint Operating & Reporting Procedure (JORP) and a defined communication protocol proved crucial for effective execution. The solution is based on a rigorous Drilling Engineering process, including detailed offset well analysis to deliver a comprehensive risk assessment and mitigation plan jointly with the Operator to tackle drilling hazards such as ballooning without compromising the directional drilling requirements. In addition, flow processes and procedures were developed for contingency events, including but not limited to losses, stuck pipe, wellbore instability, and well control. After successfully deploying the new RSS tool in Mexico offshore, the Operator came across a challenging directional well with a history of ballooning effect, losses, stuck pipe, and wellbore instability. Combining the RSS tool with MPD Constant Bottom Hole Pressure (CBHP) technique to mitigating the ballooning effect while maintaining constant surface back pressure (SBP), the well was drilled while minimizing the downhole pressure fluctuation to mitigate against wellbore instability until reaching the lower paleocene formation, taking care to maintain an equivalent circulating density (ECD) of 2.04g/cc while drilling, and 1.99g/cc during connections, in order to reduce the ballooning effect observed in offset wells. As a result of careful planning, the RSS and downhole-surface communication continued to work well, while the MPD CBHP variant successfully mitigated against ballooning and well control hazards. The paper will also discuss the effective communication protocol between directional drilling, MPD services, and rig contractors to ensure safe operational alignment. Rotary steerable systems (RSS) for directional drilling must drill in increasingly hostile environments and with different challenges inherent to formations; examples of this are formations with plastic behavior that cause ballooning effect. This phenomenon can confuse drilling crew cause its behavior is very similar to kicks from wells. Homol is an oilfield with marked ballooning characteristics, causing significant Non-Productive Time (NPT). Drilling challenges in the Homol field require the utilization of both Directional Drilling technology and MPD techniques to improve drilling performance and reduce NPT at the same time. However, the technologies need to be optimized for one another. Also, directional services had to ensure reliability and accurately position wells, while the MPD technology to discern ballooning from actual influx and managing wellbore stability. This article describes the teamwork carried out by the directional team and MPD to avoid/minimize the ballooning effect while drilling directional jobs, improving operational time. The paper also includes a planning and operational blueprint to reduce NPT related to, while increasing drilling performance in terms of rate of penetration (ROP) and wellbore quality to allow the liner to be run to section TD in the Lower Paleocene formation.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.