Integrating Human Factors into Operational Performance with Alex Carnevale

In this episode of Larry Wilson Live, Larry discusses integrating human factors into quality, production efficiency, and customer relations with Alex Carnevale, President of Dynacast International and former Chief Performance Officer at Etex.

They answer important questions like:

Why are lessons learned combined with tremendous success so difficult to spread from Safety and Health to the other departments in the organization? 

Is it just the “silo effect”? 

Is it the message or is it the messenger (some safety professionals aren’t at the same management level)? 

Or is it that the managers of the other departments view safety as something they have to contribute to in terms of time and money but gives them nothing directly in return (e.g. the sprocket needs to be guarded but the guard doesn’t make it go any faster)? 

Or perhaps it’s because many quality managers follow what Demming said: 85/15 (system vs. person)? But...that was 40 years ago. And many companies have, by now, achieved six sigma reliability within their manufacturing processes.

Unfortunately, very few humans have achieved six sigma reliability. And now most people are doing more or are being asked to do more than ever before. So is the leverage (now) with the people or is it with the system? 

Data from many multinational companies in a broad cross-section of industries confirms that significant improvements or reductions in scrap, unscheduled downtime, first-run defects or customer complaints occurred simultaneously when employees received training on Human Factors. And yet, there has been a reluctance to push that success from safety into the other departments. But how many departments are not affected by human error?

Alex Carnevale was the Chief Performance Officer at Etex when they rolled out training on human factors and critical error reduction techniques. He and Larry worked together on a pilot site in Ireland to help refine and test the “Performance” training program. So he is well aware of the successes and the benefits, as well as the struggle to get this through to the other departments within the organization. And now, with a new multi-national company he will face the challenges again... only this time we can all get to hear what he is thinking and how he is planning to do it.