Safety, Health, and Competition in the Global Marketplace

1
Chapter 5

• Safety, Health, and Competition in the Global
  Marketplace

2
Major Topics

• Competitiveness
• Productivity
• Quality
• How Safety and Health can improve Competitiveness

3
How can global competition have a negative impact
on safety and health in the work place

• To survive and prosper in todays global
  marketplace, industrial companies must be
  competitive.
• Competing in the global marketplace has been
  described as the equivalent of running a race
  that has no finish line.
• The need to achieve peak performance levels day
  after day put intense pressure on companies, and
  pressure runs downhill.
• This means that all employees from
  executive-level managers to workers on the shop
  floor feel it.
• This can create an atmosphere that can increase
  the likelihood of accidents, and lead to
  shortcuts that can increase potential health
  hazards.

4
Competitiveness

• The Institute for Corporate Competitiveness
  defines competitiveness as
• The ability to consistently succeed and prosper
  in the marketplace whether it is local, regional,
  national, or global.

5
Characteristics of the most competitive companies

• 1. Consistently outperform their competitors in
  the key areas of quality, productivity, response
  time, service, cost, and corporate image.
• 2. Continually improve all of these areas.

6
Continual improvement

• The two key concepts associated with
  competitiveness are peak performance and
  continual improvement (quality, productivity,
  response time, service, cost, and corporate
  image).
• The process of improvement must be continual.
• In order to compete, industrial companies must
  continually and consistently combine the best
  people and the best technologies with the best
  management strategies.
• The productivity record of today will be broken
  tomorrow. What is world class quality today will
  be mediocre tomorrow.

7
Productivity and value added

• Productivity is the concept of comparing output
  of goods or services to the input of resources
  needed to produce or deliver them.
• Value added is the difference between what it
  costs to produce a product and what it costs to
  purchase it.
• The difference represents the value that has been
  added to the product by the production process.
• Value added is increased when productivity is
  increased.

8
How to recognize declining productivity

• Productivity is declining when
• 1. Output declines, and input is constant, or
• 2. Output is constant, but input increases.

9
How to recognize improving productivity

• Productivity is improving when
• 1. Output is constant, but input decreases or
• 2. Output increases, and input is constant.

10
Relationship between productivity and quality

• Nothing has been gained if productivity is
  improved to the detriment of quality.
• When productivity is improved, quality must also
  improve or at least remain constant.

11
Quality

• Quality is a measure of the extent to which a
  product or service meets or exceeds customer
  expectations.

12
Rebuttal A safety and health program is just a
bunch of bureaucratic regulations that get in the
way of profits

• Talented people working in a safe and healthy
  environment will be more competitive than equally
  talented people who are constantly distracted by
  concerns for their safety and health.
• In addition the most talented employees cannot
  help a company compete if they are slowed by
  injuries.
• Money that must be diverted to workers
  compensation, medical claims, product liability
  litigation, and environmental cleanups is money
  that could have been invested in the company to
  be more competitive/profitable.

13
Summary

• Competitiveness is the ability to succeed and
  prosper in the local, regional, national, and
  global marketplace.
• Productivity is a measure of output in goods and
  services.
• Quality is a measure of the extent to which a
  product meets or exceeds customer expectations.
• Safety and health contribute to competitiveness.

14
Home work

• Answer questions 3 and 10 on page 85.
• 3. What are the common characteristics of the
  most competitive companies?
• 10. Write a brief rebuttal to the following
  statement A safety and health program is just a
  bunch of bureaucratic regulations that get in the
  way of profits.