San Jose's Disk Media Manufacturing and Development group made continuous improvement in safety in 2004, with a 50 percent reduction in accidents when compared to 2003. As of November, 2004, this effort helped drive an 18 percent reduction in accidents for the site compared with the prior year.

"This is quite an accomplishment," says Ron Owen, Safety Engineering, "because the site is already at an extremely low accident rate. It's a good example of working together toward continual improvement, which was highlighted during the Cal-OSHA VPP Star site inspection earlier this year."

The safety team – a group of about 30 individuals who volunteer to help improve safety in their work areas and educate operators on the importance of safety -- was nominated to represent the San Jose site in the corporate small group activity (SGA) effort as a result of the improvement. Hazard recognition and safety training for the team intensified this year and the number of accidents and ergonomic cases decreased substantially.

Owen attributes the substantial reduction in accidents to two things: higher levels of visible management participation and commitment to safety, and the safety team's increased involvement in day-to-day hazard recognition.

"Last year the disk organization completed a number of improvements that may not have been obvious to people," Owen adds. "But this year, the improvements are more visible and people can see the management support. Another year of significant improvement is astounding."

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