Key Precursors and Practical Steps to Get Started on Operational Discipline
Improving Operational Discipline (OD) is much more effective when certain foundational precursors are in place. It is important to recognize that OD needs and improvement opportunities are often site-specific. What works well at one facility may need to be adapted to fit the culture, processes, and challenges of another. Here are lists of precursors and practical steps you can take to help improve OD:
Key Precursors for Strong Operational Discipline
- Safety as a core value, not secondary to production or cost pressures
- Consistent and visible leadership commitment to safety
- A sense of vulnerability — the genuine belief that serious incidents can happen here, which helps prevent complacency
- Open and trusting communications across all levels of the organization
- Psychological safety — people feel safe to speak up, ask questions, and report concerns without fear of retaliation
- Clear, accurate, and usable operating procedures and safe work practices
- Effective and timely training practices that ensure people have the knowledge and skills needed
- Fitness-for-duty practices to address fatigue, stress, medications, or impairment
- Strong learning systems — timely investigation, sharing, and retention of lessons learned
- Clear accountability for following procedures and standards
These precursors create the foundation upon which effective Operational Discipline can be built and sustained.
Practical Steps to Strengthen Operational Discipline
Think of this as building your own OD Toolbox — a collection of practical tools you can add gradually, tailored to your site’s specific needs.
- Establish a small OD leadership team and set annual improvement goals Put together a cross-functional team (operations, maintenance, safety, engineering) to lead OD efforts. Have them set 2–4 specific, measurable improvement goals for the year.
- Introduce OD in a safety meeting Give a short presentation on what Operational Discipline really means. Share the Formosa case study or another relevant example to make it real.
- Look for OD issues in every incident and injury investigation
- Expand OD reviews to quality, environmental, and other variance investigations
- Regularly discuss OD findings in safety meetings and shift meetings
- Review and strengthen troubleshooting guidance
- Use checklists appropriately
- Establish a few meaningful OD-related metrics
- Include Operational Discipline in process safety audits Operational Discipline Auditing (2008 GCPS Presentation)
- Conduct a simple OD survey and workshop Ask people what gets in the way of doing things the right way. Use the results to identify quick wins. Workshop for Evaluating and Improving Operational Discipline (2008 GCPS Presentation)
- Try “Pointing and Calling” (or similar techniques) (also known as Shisa Kanko in Japanese) a simple yet highly effective technique to reduce human error. It involves physically pointing at the object or control (valve, switch, gauge, etc.) and verbally stating its status or the action being taken (discussed in Atomic Habits).
- Identify and reduce common disruptions and distractions in the work environment
Final Thought
Start small. Pick 2 or 3 items from the list above that best fit your site’s current needs and begin building your own OD Toolbox. Over time, you can add more tools and refine the ones you already have.
I’ll update and expand this list periodically. If you have suggestions or examples of what’s worked for you, please let me know at jim@psmnews.com.
Question for you: What is one simple thing your site could do this month to strengthen operational discipline?
References & Further Reading
- Klein, J.A., “Implement Effective Operational Discipline Programs to Improve Process Safety Performance – Parts 1 and 2,” Hydrocarbon Processing, February & March 2021
- Klein, J.A. and Vaughen, B.K., Process Safety: Key Concepts and Practical Approaches, CRC Press, 2017
- Is OD Your Greatest Opportunity for Improved Process Safety Performance? – Main blog post on this topic