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The APGA Operations and Safety Committee selected CPS Energy of San Antonio, Texas as the winner of the 2017 APGA Safety Management Excellence Award. This award recognizes one APGA member each year for consistently operating at the highest levels, clearly establishing itself as an achiever of excellence in the field of safety management. The committee looks for systems that have implemented innovative and effective employee safety practices. Safety is the highest priority in public gas systems and it is always difficult to single out one system among all the deserving applicants. CPS will be presented with a plaque at the APGA Annual Meeting in San Francisco on July 24.

One of the innovative programs adopted by CPS Energy, its Gas Business Unit, in conjunction with Corporate Safety, developed and deployed a behavior based safety (BBS) observation form and a database to track safety observations from both field and office personnel. All employees in the company from field to executives have been trained on Behavior Based Safety and have embraced this improved safety culture. When CPS employees were found capturing the text portion of the form on paper, an employee suggested creating an app for company phones. The app has turned out to be a great tool in collecting information on at-risk behaviors. In turn, CPS Energy recorded the lowest Total Recordable Incident Rate in CPS Energy history with a 0.27. The information gathered by the BBS app has moved the company from trending lagging indicators to tracking leading indicators (e.g., near-miss reporting and driver’s safety observations). CPS uses this information to identify accident and injury trends in order to be more proactive on safety.

Other important components of the CPS safety program include:

1. Behavior Based Safety Program – Moving employees to Interdependency in Safety
2. Drivers Safety Training – Utilizing the Smith System and a new Dual Driving Simulator
3. Safety Circuit Teams – Engaging a mixture of field and managerial employees to discuss safety topics and initiatives
4. Employee-led safety meetings – Enabling the employees to have ownership in the program.
5. Respiratory Safety Training, Trenching Safety, and Traffic Control Training – Ensuring employees are properly trained in day-to-day operations
6. Safety Ambassador program – Engaging employees to conduct safety observations across departmental lines and crafts

The Operations and Safety Committee urges all APGA members to apply for the 2018 Safety Management Excellence Award next year. For questions on this article, please contact John Erickson of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at jerickson@apga.org.