Richard S. Hartley, Ph.D., P.E.

 

ABSTRACT

Pantex has spent the last seven years undergoing a High Reliability Organization (HRO) transformation building on a 20 year journey to improve its hazardous operations. Pantex began informal discussions of high reliability in 2004 and through the efforts of Dr. Hartley, formally began its HRO journey in 2007 with a parallel effort to enhance organizational learning with the development of a Causal Factors Analysis (CFA) process to understand organizational system breakdowns when high reliability efforts fell short of their intended efforts.

Pantex strongly related to the attributes of highly reliable organizations as identified by HRO researchers and set out to develop a practical approach to guide its workforce through a journey to strive for these desired HRO attributes (http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/hro.jsp). Pantex invested heavily in HRO training to provide a fundamental framework and worked to transform theoretical concepts to practical tools and experimented with these tools with real people, with real problems, faced daily with real work challenges. Some tools have worked beyond expectations while others have fallen short of our needs. These initiatives have brought both success and frustration.

Since its inception, the practical Pantex HRO methodology has been shared with more than 500 senior managers and over 3100 employees at Department of Energy (DOE) production sites, the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board, world-wide petroleum companies, and at National Laboratories. Pantex has presented practical HRO case studies at the American Public Transportation Association, the American Nuclear Society, local and regional hospitals, universities, at HRO conferences, and with the Atomic Weapon Establishment in England. Pantex has conducted 20, month-long senior management led CFA investigations to learn from organizational mistakes and helped author the rewrite of DOE Accident Investigation and Prevention Manuals (http://www.hss.energy.gov/sesa/corporatesafety/AIP/ ).

This presentation will introduce the Pantex HRO framework as the basis for discussion then will move to discussions on Pantex’s efforts to integrate separate, but related areas around the HRO framework to provide a more holistic approach to employee development. I would like to begin laying out the challenges many organizations are starting to see after the novelty of HRO wears off and begin discussions of what it really takes to transform and maintain an organization as an HRO.

SPEAKER

Richard S. Hartley, Ph.D., P.E.
Principal Engineer
Environment, Safety, Health and Quality Division
B&W Pantex in Amarillo, Texas.

Dr. Hartley is the primary lead for developing and implementing High Reliability Organization (HRO) practices at Pantex, the country’s principal nuclear weapon assembly and disassembly plant. Because of the importance of a healthy safety culture to high reliability operations, Dr. Hartley has invested a large effort understanding the meaning, the practical ways to assess, and the practical implications of, safety culture on reliable operations. Dr. Hartley complements these efforts with an organizationally focused Causal Factors Analysis (CFA) investigation process for information-rich, yet non-consequential events to learn when HRO practices fall short. Dr. Hartley has written two texts on the HRO and CFA as practical guides for organizations wanting to pursue high reliability and learn as organizations (http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/hro.jsp).  Dr. Hartley has developed a practical methodology to proactively improve the work environment.

 

Meeting Video Recording

Meeting Presentation Slides

Paper:  Pantex HRO Journey

Paper:  Intro to BW & Pantex HRO Program

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