Installation Safety Upholding Highest Standards
From Lt. Clara Navarro, CNIC Public Affairs
NAVAL AIR STATION WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. - In the Navy, safety is just as important on land as it is at sea. Parts and people are continuously moving, and keeping those movements safe is a priority for Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNIC).
Munitions Safety NAS Whidbey Island Safety First
CNIC is the Base Operating Support (BOS) Shore Integrator of Safety services across the Navy, meaning it is in charge of ensuring that safety procedures across the Navy's shore enterprise are held to effective, stringent standards.
To develop and implement those standards, CNIC is using American National Standard for Occupational Health concepts as part of its shore enterprise Safety Management System (SMS).
"The Safety Management System is a tool that is designed to be a living representation of the safety program at work," said Odie Smith, CNIC's Safety and Occupational Health specialist. "The Installation Safety Council consists of key players from around the base who come together on a routine basis to discuss hazards and help recommend abatement and mitigation priorities for the chair, the installation commander, to approve or raise to a higher level."
The SMS framework consists of an iterative continuous improvement cycle, four pillars, and minimum fundamental elements that underpin those pillars.
Plan: Define the problem, collect relevant data and ascertain the problem's root cause.
Do: Develop and implement a solution; decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness.
Check: Confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison.
Act: Document the results, inform others about process changes and make recommendations to readdress continuous process improvements for the problem in the next Plan, Do, Check, Act (PCDA) cycle.
PDCA is a loop, not a process with a beginning and an end. This means the improved process or product becomes the new baseline, as the organization continues to look for ways for improvement.
CNIC's SMS has been operational and effective since July 2020, five months after the Department of Defense released a concept of operations for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).
"CNIC established a systems approach for safety management focusing on mishap prevention and the mitigation of risk to the lowest acceptable level," said Richard Maiello, CNIC's headquarters program director for safety. "This approach aligns with DOD ERM concepts to support customer activities in identifying safety hazards, communicating risks and using that insight to inform leadership decisions."
The CNIC SMS is shore enterprise-wide, implemented across 10 regions and 70 installations. CNIC headquarters is active in virtual assessments and on-the-ground assessments, assisting regions and installations to communicate risk that is being carried at locations.
The mission-essential task of CNIC installation safety is to establish, implement and manage NAVSOH Program functions. NAVSOH has four sub-functional areas: Safety and Occupational Health (SOH), explosives safety, traffic safety, and Recreational and Off-Duty Safety (RODS).
CNIC, as the shore enterprise's BOS representative, meets regularly with the Naval Safety Command and other echelon II commands to discuss SMS implementation.
Commander, Navy Installations Command oversees 48,000 employees located around the world and is charged with sustaining the fleet, enabling the fighter and supporting the family. For more news from CNIC, visit www.cnic.navy.mil or follow the command's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Coleen R. San Nicolas-Perez
Deputy Director, Public Affairs
Commander, Navy Installations Command
Email: coleen.r.sannicolasperez.civ@us.navy.mil