DuPont initiative — major outcomes identified

While interactive planning has been used in many different organizations, the article by James E. Leemann, PhD, in Systemic Practice and Action Research is the first to address such an approach in an occupational health environment. Accordingly, Leemann has outlined a number of outcomes he believes would be useful for others planning a similar initiative:

• Proactive creation and development of a larger number of variable solutions to address SHE (safety, health, and environmental) issues and problems.
• Identify less expensive or cost-avoiding solutions.
• Step-change improvement in SHE performance vs. continuous improvement in performance.
• Transforming a staff function from a cost of doing business to a value-adding profit center whose services are in high demand, by both the organization and its customers.
• Creating time to do more higher value adding work while trained line-organization employees do more routine work.
• Developing a more robust product offering for customers.
• Making SHE knowledge available to everyone in the organization to improve decision making and enhance capability.

Source: Leemann J. Applying interactive planning at DuPont: The case of transforming a safety, health, and environmental function to deliver business value. Systemic Practice and Action Research 2002; 15(2):85-109.