"While safety has always been a priority at DuPont, in the early 1990s there was very little emphasis on safety precautions in our labs," says Gary Smith, Safety, Health, and Environmental Manager for DuPont Central Research and Development (CR&D). "Since that time, the concept of laboratory safety has evolved so that our researchers now view safety as a personal responsibility and as an integral step in the research phase.

"Safety guidelines are no longer thought of as inconvenient rules and procedures," he continues. "Our researchers now see safety management systems as an enhancement to the quality of the research itself."

DuPont's CR&D division employs more than 1,500 people, with approximately 600 of those employees holding PhDs. Researchers within CR&D are considered to be the foundation for DuPont's leading edge research activities, including wet chemistry, analytical chemistry, biology, pharmaceuticals, materials science, and electronics research.

The CR&D division is housed near Wilmington, Del., at the Experimental Station, which opened in 1903, making it one of the earliest industrial research laboratories in the United States. The Experimental Station houses approximately 20 various business and research groups and research conducted there has led to groundbreaking developments.

Evaluating the Security Infrastructure

"After the September 11th attacks, we did a thorough evaluation of the three core elements of our security infrastructure—the site perimeter, each individual building, and all aspects of our laboratory work including material usage and storage," says Smith. He added that after review the facility should be considered a low risk for a terrorist attack.

Site Perimeter Security Located on a self-contained 152-acre campus, the entire site is enclosed by a fence that was recently topped with barbed wire for added security. In addition, a new pathway was cleared along the fence to allow for the installation of security cameras and motion detectors around the entire site perimeter.

New procedures were also put in place to enforce tighter perimeter security. Restrictions have been placed on outside deliveries, including no more pizza deliveries within the site. Employees must now greet all deliveries at the gate and are required to escort all visitors throughout the site.

Individual Building Security The campus contains 48 buildings or approximately 2.7 million sf. As part of the recent security review, each building was evaluated to determine whether it should have 24-hour or off-hour card access. Following the review, several additional buildings were equipped with card access security systems, and various changes were made to expand secure hours for existing card access buildings.

Research Security DuPont also looked at research lab security, including pilot plant operations and gas storage facilities.

"One of the significant changes we made pertained to reviewing purchases made through our Internet purchasing system," says Smith. "This system allows us to maintain a central inventory tracking system and to keep very tight control over the purchasing and storage of potentially dangerous chemicals and biologicals used within the sites."

The new Internet-based system uses software from Ariba. Even though individual researchers can continue to purchase the required chemicals, an independent chemist reviews purchases on a monthly basis. This process helps alert DuPont to any unusual quantities or types of purchases.

Other security precautions within the laboratories include the use of monitoring in selected locations, and a strong computer firewall to prevent the possibility of off-site computer hacking.

"In addition to the recent changes, one of our best security systems is good communication from the employees," says Smith. "We encourage our employees to report anything suspicious or anything that they feel might be a safety or security risk."

Safety Accountability

"In addition to security precautions made to our physical site, we have found that the quickest way to improve safety is to make everyone personally accountable for safety," says Smith who adds that the philosophy is that there is no research more important than good safety performance.

It has always been a management practice within DuPont to report all safety incidents directly to the chief executive of the company and safety performance is directly linked to overall job performance reviews. As a result, pay incentives (such as bonuses) are given for positive safety performance and individual development action is taken for negative safety.

"We start each year with the goal of zero injuries or incidents and, most importantly, zero repeat incidents," says Smith. "This means that we are committed to learning from our mistakes and making sure that they don't happen again."

He added that DuPont managers are all encouraged to recognize employees for good safety performance—such as celebrating periods of time with no lost workday cases, first aid cases, or OSHA recordables, the government's definition of work-related incidents, occupational injuries, and illnesses.

If there is a recordable injury, CR&D's policy is that the injury must be reported to the respective director within two hours of the incident. If there is a lost workday case, it needs to be reported to the corporate chief executive within 24 hours. In addition, the incident is shared by email with the entire organization to encourage everyone to learn from the incident and prevent it from happening again.

Using Proactive Safety Tools

"Each manager is responsible for holding monthly safety meetings for their group," says Smith. "And once a year, each group is encouraged to have a 'stand-down day,' to make sure all safety procedures are up to speed, that employees are trained in safety procedures, and that the lab space meets standards for cleanliness and safety."

CR&D includes safety training during orientation for all new employees and each new employee is assigned a mentor to help with training in specific safety procedures and policies.

CR&D's Safety Group conducts a quarterly Safe Acts Index audit, aimed at tracking and preventing types of unsafe behavior. The results are published to the entire organization.

Incident investigation is a safety tool used when any unusual event occurs that has safety, health, or environmental implications. The investigation reviews 14 various elements that could have contributed to the incident, including materials usage, procedural safety training, and equipment or technology failures.

"Researchers love to understand why an event occurred and to get to the bottom line," says Smith. "When we do an incident investigation, we use a team approach that involves members of our safety group, employees involved and the manager of the affected group."

Another safety measure is the hazard analysis, comprised of a checklist that helps researchers identify potential hazards related to such things as temperature, reactivity, toxicity, flammability, or electrical and mechanical issues within the lab.

"Defining potential hazards before an incident occurs helps us to build in safeguards that prevent injuries or illnesses from happening," says Smith. "It is a very proactive way of determining how to mitigate safety problems if they occur, including design solutions, procedural changes, or training issues."

He adds that the hazard analysis tool has proven to be invaluable for evaluating safety measures related to labs that host multiple disciplines.

"When we have a lab that deals with multiple disciplines, we ask an expert from each discipline to be part of the analysis," says Smith. "This gets the right people involved, whether there is interaction between the disciplines within the lab or whether a lab space is being converted from one discipline to another."

The hazard analysis tool also helps the researcher define specific safety procedures and policies that outline potential hazards and the safety steps that should be taken as part of the experiment. This includes instructions on the use of personal protective equipment and lab equipment. DuPont's specific fume hood policies require that all work be done at least six inches behind the hood and that researchers don't break the plane of the hood. CR&D also recently changed its policies so that no food or drink of any kind is permitted in the labs or open adjacent areas.

"Beyond rules, procedures and equipment, good safety is really a function of people paying attention every second of every day," says Smith.

By Amy Cammell

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