How we manage safety
Safety is at the heart of everything we do, driven by our leadership and applied through our operating management system
Our safety and risk management approach is built on our experience, including what we have learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005, operations audits, annual risk reviews, other incident investigations and from industry practice of sharing experience. While we maintain our focus on processes and practices, we also place great emphasis on how our workforce applies them, thereby working to strengthen safety culture and workforce capability.
Leadership and culture
BP’s senior management has set clear expectations designed to help operational leaders to excel as safety leaders. Safety is one of our five values, embedding the behaviours and culture that guide us to act in a certain way. Additionally, our code of conduct clarifies the basic rules our people must follow including expectations for operating safely, responsibly and reliably. Our leaders reinforce the message that it is not just ‘what’ we do, but ‘how’ we do it that is important.
Gordon Birrell
Regional President, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, BP
"Site visits are about senior leaders, including BP non-executive board members, checking that the fundamentals of compliance and safe operations in a high hazard industry are being done to BP's requirements in our operating management system. We get more connected to the workforce, more connected to our operations, and gain insight that we wouldn't otherwise have that we can take back to our day-to-day jobs."
We offer capability development programmes about our operating management system (OMS), process safety and risk and safety leadership for leaders across all levels.
Enlarge imageOperations Academy
Our Operations Academy was established to enhance the existing safety and operations capability of BP’s operations leaders. Both board and senior management team members addressed participants during sessions in 2012. By the end of 2012, some 300 senior operations leaders had graduated from the Operations Academy.
Managing Operations
Our Managing Operations course, aimed at mid-level managers, combines training and working on real-world problems to help site managers develop their capability in safety and operational risk. The intent is to enable them to apply what they learn at their sites to deliver business objectives. More than 350 employees took part in the Managing Operations course in 2012.
Operating Essentials
The Operating Essentials programme uses interactive team-based learning to work on issues and challenges across areas such as process safety, risk management, our OMS, leadership, culture and continuous improvement. Workshops are a cross-functional mix of people at various leadership levels. In 2012, more than 300 Operating Essentials modules were delivered across the globe.
Leading in the Field
Our Leading in the Field programme helps operations leaders to engage their workforces in solving systems problems that they may face on a day-to-day basis. This programme aims to enhance managers’ leadership skills by helping them seek out their employees’ perspectives, understand the challenges they face and provide support.
Exemplar
Exemplar is a facility-based, structured coaching programme that aims to reduce process safety risk through continuous improvement. It has been developed to help leaders and their teams implement OMS at the local level and more effectively embed OMS through their business. Five sites, including our Toledo refinery in Ohio and our Decatur petrochemicals plant in Alabama, are currently participating in the pilot phase of the Exemplar programme and it will be expanded into 2013.
Attestation
The information on this page forms part of the information reviewed and reported on by Ernst & Young as part of BP's 2012 sustainability reporting
How we operate
BP's operating management system is key to achieving safe and reliable operations
How we operate
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Focusing on the fundamentals of safe operating
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