First Response

NASA Presents Special Act Award to Ex3

(Ex3), a provider of environmental, health, safety, security, and productivity data management, has been awarded the NASA Safety Center Special Act Award for valued and outstanding support.

In announcing the award, NASA offi­cials noted Ex3’s work to assist the NASA Safety Center in enhancing its capabilities, and its management of occu­pational health and safety data, including safety incident investigation in all NASA centers agency wide. Additionally, Ex3 provides the software system for manag­ing space flight hardware issues reporting and resolution.

“This being the second time that we’ve earned an award from NASA adds to the validity of our products, our technology, and our company overall,” said Nathan Giles, president and CEO of Ex3. “This award means that NASA continues to view the partnership with Ex3 as being very successful and productive.”

“Ex3 provides data collection and analysis support to the Knowledge Management Systems Office at the NASA Safety Center. Their support is important to the overall success of our project,” said Suzanne Otero, NASA project manager.

Ex3 worked with many different NASA Centers and personnel to assess changing requirements and provide the continued innovation in design and scal­ability critical in how data is being gath­ered across NASA. The data collection capabilities assist NASA during the challenging technical and organizational transitions supporting the era of explo­ration for NASA and our country.

“NASA has unique challenges due to the inherently dangerous nature of their work,” said Giles, who was actually fly­ing over Texas when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere on February. 1, 2003. “When you hit the ground and something like that has happened around you, it becomes clear the importance of what you’re doing.”

Giles said the pressures on the people at NASA are more intense than those faced by average manufacturers. Addi­tionally the legacy mainframe system for collecting summary data was difficult to access and falling short of the reporting capabilities needed by NASA. NASA asked Ex3 to help them improve the efficiency of data collection, analysis of that data and thus improve communica­tion across the entire agency.

Ex3 replaced over a hundred different systems for tracking safety incidents. They were tracking everything, but tracking in little pockets with no abil­ity to analyze the data, said Giles. Our program offered visibility across the whole system, and reporting rose 1,700 percent.

“Clearly, the Columbia incident became compelling, very, very visible evi­dence, fresh in the minds of everybody, that there was a need to do something different,” Giles said. “They were ready, but it certainly raised the urgency.

“The thing about the people at NASA is that they’re all very proud of what they do. They are extremely conscientious and truly desire to do a good job. They have technical expertise in safety. Ex3 brought additional technical exper­tise in agency-wide data management.”

Giles suggests that often organizations don’t have complete and accurate data. When you make reporting easier you typically have a spike. If done right, you’re going to see a rise in the number of incidents reported. Once you see that spike you can start to do something about it.

“I’d venture to say that almost every company out there is grossly un­derreporting because they don’t have easy access to systems for collecting all the stuff that doesn’t seem important. Do you report near misses If you’re only making the minimum ef­fort, you’re not reporting enough. You have to give yourself the opportunity to improve.”

That’s why it’s important to make sure that a safety culture is maintained. Software is just a tool, said Giles. If you don’t use it or use it right, you’re not go­ing to get the value out of it. You have to have the culture to use it and practice it. Safety cultures vary drastically based on the leadership of different organizations, said Giles. There has to be clear direc­tion from leadership with back up. Not just lip service.

“They have to have a passionate commitment. They have to say, ‘I can’t live with myself if people are dying.’ That’s the difference. That kind of commitment makes things happen. There are too many companies where leadership says safety is important, but doesn’t put money behind it. There’s no staffing or funding. They’re not re­ally working to make it part of daily life. In a way it has to be a religion within your organization.”

Even if data is in front of them, get­ting people to make empirical decisions rather than emotional decisions is diffi­cult. Because of the clear commitment on the part of NASA leadership to safety culture and practice, and the improve­ments which have been made to its sys­tems NASA would be more inclined to make better empirical decisions now, added Giles.  Culture sets the rules of engagement for the tool. It gets people to actually use the tool, and to have faith in the quality and reliability of the data that’s in the tool.

“A tool without the culture won’t get you there.”

DuPont Names New CEO, Buys Training Company

Ellen J. Kullman, 52, has been named president and a director of DuPont, effective October 1, and will then take over as chief executive officer January. 1. Charles O. Holliday, Jr., 60, chairman and CEO, will serve as chairman of the board until Kullman’s expected succession as chairman.

“During the past 10 years, I have had the unique privilege of leading DuPont’s transformation to a market-driven science company that leads the way in solving some of the most difficult and pressing human needs in a resource-constrained world,” Holliday said. “Having transformed the company, increased our profitability and returns, and developed a talented and strong next generation of leaders, now is the right time to make a seamless transition to new leadership.

 “Ellen is ready to lead DuPont’s market-driven strategy for faster growth,” Holliday added. “By appointing Ellen now as president, she will define DuPont’s detailed 2009 execution plans that will make a solid advance toward achieving our 2010 accelerated growth goals.”

“I am honored to have been selected by the board of di-rectors to lead DuPont into its next phase of accelerated growth,” said Kullman. “We have a renowned science capability, a rich pipeline of new products, the right productivity mindset and terrific market opportunities. We will build on our momentum and drive earnings growth by continuing on our mission to solve challenging global problems and achieve our financial commitments, including our 2010 growth goals. I look forward to working with the exceptional people of DuPont to serve our customers and communities and to reward our shareholders.”

Kullman is the 19th executive to lead the company in DuPont’s 206-year history. Since June 2006, she has served as an executive vice president and a member of the company’s office of the chief executive, with responsibility for four of DuPont’s five business segments and its Marketing & Sales and Environmental Sustainability functions. From February 2002 to June 2006 as group vice president of the then-newly formed DuPont Safety & Protection segment, Kullman led revenue growth from $3.5 billion to $5.5 billion. She joined the company in 1988 from General Electric.

Seeking to expand its Safety Resources business, DuPont has acquired Coastal Training Technologies Cor-poration, a producer and marketer of training programs headquartered in Virgina Beach, VA.

This transaction is expected to fuel significant growth for DuPont Safety Resources, a safety consulting business within the DuPont Safety & Protection segment. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but the acquisition includes transfer of all customer agreements, patents, copyrights, brands, equipment and personnel.

It will allow DuPont, a provider of industrial safety services, to provide a broader mix of delivery systems to a growing global audience. Coastal Training Technologies, with offices in the United States, Mexico, Europe, Brazil, India and the Philip-pines, will gain access to DuPont’s broad customer net-work for its extensive library of training products. “Coastal is a dynamic and creative company that produces world-class training products,” said James R. than $600 million annually.

Weigand, vice president and general manager, DuPont Safety Resources. “By combining their capabilities with our innovative science and safety experience, we will be able to address a wide range of client needs from consultative safety leadership to instructor-led training to e-learning based systems.”

The acquisition is part of the company’s strategy to expand its presence in emerging markets and safety industries. It complements DuPont’s current safety training and consulting business, creating a single-source training leader with the greatest variety of safety programs for companies, governments and organizations seeking training and consultation. “One of the most exciting aspects of becoming part of DuPont is that we are joining a company that shares our long-held values regarding the importance of safety and improving people’s lives,” said Paul Michels, founder and CEO of Coastal.

“DuPont’s global commitment to protecting people and the environment, developing employees and running highly efficient operations is a perfect fit with Coastal’s mission.” According to a report issued by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), U.S. organizations alone spent approximately $50 billion on overall external training services in 2007.

DuPont estimates the global market for safety training materials and programs at more E-learning programs continue to be the fastest growing tools in the industry. Over a five-year period beginning in 2001, the use of technology-based programs nearly tripled — growing from 11 percent to 30 percent.

 The DuPont Safety & Protection segment includes DuPont Advanced Fiber Systems, DuPont Nonwovens, DuPont Building Innovations, DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise and DuPont Safety Resources. In 2007, the division’s revenues totaled $5.6 billion. FSM