Color Coded Badges

The Pilot Plant at Armstrong World Industries, a global ceiling tile manufacturer, has tons of operating equipment designed to allow technicians, engineers, and scientists to try out their ideas and experiment in their efforts to create new processes and products. One of the areas in the Pilot Plant that gets the most use is the wood shop. Containing over 50 separate pieces of equipment, much of it requiring skills to operate it safely.

Each area in the Pilot Plant has an owner, and the wood shop is no exception. Troy is his name (made up to protect the guilty), and he manages a tight ship. As much of the equipment in the wood shop had cutting and grinding capabilities, there was a need to train people to use the equipment safely and properly. Troy takes his responsibilities very seriously and has trained all of the people who wanted to use the equipment himself, on an annual basis. If someone wanted to use the equipment but wasn’t trained or qualified, Troy wouldn’t let them. That is, if he was aware of it.

It turns out that some of the employees used the equipment without training or qualification from Troy, when he wasn’t there. Word got back to Troy and he was not happy about it. This was his area and he was responsible for it. He knew he needed to do something to keep people safe and doing the right thing, but his earlier efforts confronting those who were breaking the rules didn’t get the desired results. He even spoke with the managers of those who were breaking the rules and that didn’t work either. More and more frustrated, he looked like he was about to blow a gasket one day and I decided to see if how I could help.

Shifting Responsibility

When we first started discussing the problem, Troy told me people should respect the rules and equipment and act responsibly. If they weren’t willing to follow the rules and keep themselves safe, “we should fire the lot of them.” Knowing that terminating employees isn’t the ideal solution, I wondered if he was willing to try a different approach. As I had worked with Troy for many years and we got along pretty well, he humored me and listened to what I had to say.

I acknowledged the problem and how critical it was for people to do the right thing. I also acknowledged Troy’s tremendous energy and effort that he had put into the training and expectations in the wood shop. He had trained more than fifty employees annually and kept careful records. He did the follow-up and communication and tracked compliance. Quite a task, as it was in addition to his normal duties in the Pilot Plant. I asked Troy if he thought there was a way to make it easier to enforce compliance that wouldn’t be totally reliant on him. If I saw Joe using a band saw, I had no way of knowing whether Joe had been trained and qualified to use the band saw. I could ask Joe, but that wasn’t an efficient way to create accountability.

Troy looked at me kind of funny. I get that look often. I could tell he was processing my question. Then I pointed out the area in his wood shop where everyone can assess compliance, the tool board. Anyone could tell whether all the right tools were on the board and when they were missing. It was easy to step in and hold people accountable to do the right thing. The visual nature of the board made it easy for anyone to help. Now the light bulb went on for Troy. I was ready to help some more, but I could see that he wanted to figure things out for himself.

Earn Your Badge

Three weeks later, Troy was ready to share his solution for training and accountability in the wood shop. He created a badge system with three colors, red, blue, and yellow. Yellow was the lowest safety risk level, blue was next, and red was the top safety risk level. He identified the safety risk of each of the over 50 pieces of equipment used in the wood shop, assigned them a risk color, and attached the appropriate badge to each piece of equipment. Next, he communicated the new badging system to the organization. Finally, he would personally assign a badge to each person based on their training and Troy’s qualification rules. Only Troy could issue the badge and only someone wearing a badge was authorized to use the equipment with the corresponding risk level as the badge being worn. If you wanted a higher-level badge, you had to be personally trained and qualified by Troy. Nobody got a colored badge unless Troy authorized it.

The rest of the organization was now able to assess compliance within seconds and help Troy keep everyone safe and doing the right thing. Troy put in all of the preparation and effort. But the rest of the organization could help him maintain compliance. It didn’t take long before we stopped hearing stories of people trying to go around the system. And for good reason, our leaders were holding themselves accountable to help Troy keep the area safe and compliant. The rest of the organization saw how important it was and stayed compliant. It stayed that way through my last days at Armstrong. If I know the organization and Troy, it still is that way to this day.