Domtar's Safety Journey

LARRY WARREN and JAN BOTTIGLIERI

Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from a feature in the just-released Jan/Feb 2019 issue of Paper360°. It is offered here for Ahead of the Curve readers who may have missed it. For the full article, and to access the entire Jan/Feb issue plus additional online content, visit www.paper360.tappi.org.

A dozen years ago, Domtar was already a leading pulp and paper manufacturer with a history stretching back more than a century—not the type of company typically associated with massive organizational change. Yet in 2007, that's exactly what happened when Domtar Inc. more than doubled its assets by acquiring the Fine Paper business of Weyerhaeuser Company.

Today, Domtar employs 10,000 people, is the largest integrated manufacturer and marketer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America, and is one of the largest manufacturers of pulp in the world. Domtar's 13 pulp and paper mills and 10 paper converting facilities total 3 million tpy of papermaking capacity and 1.8 million air-dried metric tons (ADMT) of market pulp capacity annually.

Along with that tremendous change came tremendous opportunity. "It certainly was a unification of two different styles," says Marty Barfield, pulp production manager at Domtar's Plymouth, NC mill. "Domtar was already made of several other companies; we really had a blending of different cultures into what we called 'the new Domtar.' It was a learning process to see the different ways people did safety, quality, or a number of other functions. For me, it was like starting with a blank canvas—we could craft how we wanted our safety process to be, using our collective experiences."

Starting with Systems
The organization seized that opportunity to begin a safety journey that continues today. They began by developing an audit protocol that has been improved over the years into its current form, Barfield says. The goal: to create a culture of cooperation between Domtar's safety professionals. "We started by establishing a monthly working safety call to bring everyone together," he says. "We would work through important issues that needed to be shared from a corporate perspective, as well as providing a stage for mills to share their experiences so others could learn."

These foundational days were important in that they established the implementation of progressive systems that resulted in a safer work culture, Barfield notes. "We needed to develop a leadership component, which meant focusing on the history of injuries and incidents from our different companies, and from that perspective put in place programs and systems to address the issues that were causing incidents."

Since 2007, Domtar has reduced recordable workplace injuries by 66 percent, and has a company-wide goal of a 0.5 recordable incident frequency rate by 2020. (Chart courtesy of Domtar.)
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The strategy produced rapid results. "When the companies came together, our recordable incident rate was slightly over 2. Today, our incident rate is .75," says Barfield. "We were able to cut it in half pretty quick; we went from 2.14 to the 1.4 range within the first four years. But you know, as you improve, it gets harder."

After the initial slate of systems was put in place, Domtar leaders knew they needed to maintain that momentum. "The Weyerhaeuser/Domtar deal benefitted significantly from senior leadership within the new organization that was very focused on safety, with high expectations for safety performance and the way safety is viewed in the organization," says Larry Warren, senior director of Health and Safety for the Pulp and Paper Division.

Barfield concurs. "I personally don't think you attain the results we've attained without the significant, actionable commitment of leadership. That means being visible, being a flag-bearer, driving those systems approaches." That leadership, combined with the focus, effort, and dedication of all Domtar employees has resulted in the positive impacts on our organization.

When Domtar was ready for the next step, its safety leaders began to look at Human Performance Improvement (HPI) and error precursors. "That's been the systemic approach that has helped us move to the next level," Barfield says.

Making HPI Work
Around 2013, several Domtar professionals attended a Pulp and Paper Safety Association (PPSA) conference in Williamsburg, VA, Warren recalls. "We heard safety consultant Shane Bush talk about HPI, and we felt Domtar was ready to undertake the initiative. Allan Bohn, the senior director of health and safety for Domtar at that point in time, brought it back and presented it to the organization."

HPI is based on work cataloged by the US Department of Energy. Much of this material was drawn from the work in the nuclear power generation industry in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of an unplanned event and the potential for a catastrophic result. The DOE makes HPI manuals available on-line, free of charge.

Still, Domtar's safety professionals felt that attempting to undertake this effort without the support of a subject matter professional would not give them the results they wanted. "The learning curve would be too long to get to the point of beginning to make a positive impact on the organization," Warren says. They worked with Shane Bush to get things started.

HPI involves three major areas: Philosophy, Investigation, and Error Reduction tools. "Early on in our journey, the investigation tool was often mistakenly thought of as the most important portion; however, our evolution has indicated that understanding and applying the philosophy is probably the most impactful part," Warren says. "That understanding partially came through training and partially flowed out of the results of investigations."

At a very high level, the philosophy of HPI involves the following ideas:
• All humans are fallible and even the best make mistakes
• It's not about "fixing" the worker
• Errors—something you did not intend to do—are predictable, preventable, and manageable
• Individual performance is influenced by organizational processes and values
• It is possible to reduce future error occurrences and minimize the impact of those that occur
• A Just Culture—how employees are treated, responding appropriately to errors, and becoming a learning organization—is critical.

The investigation process builds on HPI philosophy. If an error is something a worker did not intend to do, what was the context that resulted in his or her decision to act in that way at that point in time?
Part of the investigation process deals with determining the error precursors that were present that may have led to the decision that resulted in the unwanted outcome. A key part of the investigation process focuses on determining the gap between work as imagined—what leaders thought or expected to be going on—and work as actually performed, or what actually happened. The decisions around the event are analyzed through what is called "a Just Culture Decision Tree."

The process forces leadership to take a hard look at the expectations they place on staff, Warren says. "There are numerous ways to fail with HPI, and I think the primary one is lack of leadership commitment. About 50 percent of the errors or events turn out to be organizational, so senior leadership needs to be committed to that path and willing to hear things about the organization that might not be expected."

That leads to the final piece of the investigation process: the creation of effective corrective actions to truly eliminate the gap between work as imagined and work as performed, in order to reduce the likelihood of a future occurrence.

The third major portion of HPI is error reduction and prevention. Since error-likely situations are predictable and a Just Culture allows employees to identify situations where there are concerns regarding the potential for unwanted outcomes, tools and practices can be deployed to reduce the likelihood of undesirable results. For Domtar, this has led to efforts to proactively prevent issues rather than reactively respond to issues.

"Domtar's experience with HPI has been the most influential portion of our growing understanding of human behavior and the impact on our overall performance and, specifically, our safety performance," says Warren. "This growth would not have been possible had it not been for the PPSA, Shane Bush, and all the employees at Domtar who have expended much time and effort on it."

The Road Goes On
The journey will continue, Warren says. "Most people started thinking about HPI in terms of safety, but really it's about overall human performance. We've actually begun to use these tools for supply chain issues, HR issues, environmental issues—many areas other than safety, as it becomes more and more engrained into the way we do business at Domtar."

The safety success has become part of Domtar's core values, says Terry Hughes, safety manager at Domtar's Kingsport, TN, mill. "The caring attitude is evident in all we do. We're agile—we can change as we see fit and we're not afraid of it. We're innovative, so people on the floor come up with ideas for improvement. That engagement in safety—from the guy working on the machine to the CEO—is always evident."

Barfield says that, for Domtar, safety has been "a journey in continuous improvement. That's evidenced by the reduction of our incident rate, by the application of systems, by the addition of HPI, by our work with TAPPISAFE—it has not been a stagnant process. This journey has relied on many intelligent people who have great ideas, and have come together in a culture of understanding, learning, and application. It's been great to see how we've progressed over the years."

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