BREMERTON, Wash. –
The National Association of Superintendents and the Assistant Production Superintendents Association have collaborated to provide an incentive — known as "The Parking Initiative" — for members of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility to pro-actively find and fix all manner of safety and environmental deficiencies.
“Our program is simple,” said Don Flowers, director, Shop 75, Dismantlers. “Any employee can identify any deficiency and document the deficiency on what we are calling ‘Safe it forward’ or ‘Find it, fix it’ form. These submissions will be reviewed by shop safety advocates and the best nominations will be routed to the NAS and APSA safety committees, which will cast votes for the best.”
According to Flowers, winners will be awarded free parking for an entire quarter, a certificate to be presented at either the NAS or APSA luncheon, and a free lunch. The committees have two executive parking spots next to Olympic lodge available as rewards.
Even though this program has been sponsored by NAS and APSA for several years, awareness of it has waned. Flowers said the goal is to improve employee and environmental safety in every possible way, by using tried and true thinking about safety at PSNS & IMF.
“The NAS and APSA have seen a drop in nominations over the last several months, and our goal is to reinvigorate the program,” Flowers said. “The purpose of the program is to motivate, encourage and reward our workforce to be engaged with safety on a daily basis. We have seen unsafe conditions that could have resulted in serious injuries.”
From their first week at PSNS & IMF, employees are introduced to basis safety concepts that can help protect them and their teammates. Flowers said this safety emphasis program piggybacks off of existing safety knowledge throughout the command.
“This program is aligned with our Operational Risk Management program, which is well known in the command,” he said. “That asks three basic questions: What is going to hurt me? What am I going to do about it? And, if I cannot do something about it, who will I tell?”
If employees do not know who their shop safety advocate is, they should check with their supervisor for that information. Shop safety advocates can help employees capture and submit their safety deficiency entries.