Operations research at Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park had expressed a need for improved project management and worker safety capability due to high incident rates and increasingly complex project environment. The operations research study goals were to identify the underlying problem from both a procedural and a cultural perspective. A method entitled Safety Capability Maturity Modelling was created to appraise both management and safety practices as well as gain an understanding of the underlying work culture. Results identified specific work practice areas to be improved including safety planning and procedures, employee involvement, and corrective actions procedures. A significant cultural issue, reprisal for stopping unsafe work, was also identified. An intervention was introduced to the park to supplant the negative workplace reprisal stories with examples of supervisor praise for putting safety first. This operations research is on-going and hopefully will help the park improve its work efficiency and safety performance.