FROM THE DESK OF

When one event is one too many

Jeanne Fallon-Carine

our team, and our subcontractors, follow a sites EHS

EHS Leader, Optimization and Control

program and meet customer goals and expectations.

GE Energy
jeanne.falloncarine@ge.com

Our teams are devoted to finding ways to better meet

customer needs. Looking for synergies and ways to
eliminate redundancy for processes, procedures,
and training can reduce costs of compliance while
maintaining a high level of performance and quality.
Streamlining our internal EHS processes is another
mechanism that simplifies doing business with GE
Energy. We are developing consistent EHS policies
and training requirements and implementing a single

ur General Manager for services, Jim

Junker, probably summed it up best: In
the industries we serve, you either demonstrate that you can perform the work

safety risk assessment tool. Our services businesses are

focused on delivering simple, safe, and efficient services
for you.
Another aspect of our approach involves proactive

safely, or you become a potential liability issue for our

EHS meetings with our customers. These meetings

customers. In short, you dont get invited back. Its

are a platform to reinforce our EHS commitment and

that simple.

to gain insight around our customers EHS needs and

Our customers understand that just one Environment

Health and Safety (EHS) event is one too many. When
something goes awry in a plant, the public and the
media generally dont distinguish whether it was the
plants own employees or contractorsthe plant takes
the brunt of the criticism. It only takes a second to erode
years of credibility and good will for our customers and
ourselves.
Thats why at GE, EHS is more than just a fundamental
responsibility to our employees and shareholders
its a smart business practice that adds value to our
customers by protecting their reputations as well as our
own. Our goal is to continue to improve availability, job
efficiency, and the time it takes to get your equipment
back into service.

expectations. In many instances, we have teamed with

customers to have best management practice sharing
sessions. Using technology like digital training, computerized audit tracking, and action item closure reporting
to drive EHS ownership throughout our operating
teams has resulted in proven EHS performance that is
significantly better than industry norms.
Our Business Continuity and Pandemic Planning efforts
are a recent example of proactively delivering customer
value. One of the top priorities at GE Energy is maintaining the continuity of our operations while protecting our
employees and customers around the world to ensure
that we can continue to meet our customers critical
needs in the event of a crisis. We recently performed a
business wide review and enhancement of our Business
Continuity Plan and crisis management preparedness.

To ensure that GE Energy is delivering against your EHS

The goal was to ensure that our business is adequately

expectations, we take a proactive approach. Our service

prepared to respond to crisis such as a pandemic

team works with each customers EHS team through

outbreak of the avian influenza. We tested our current

pre-qualification programs, job risk assessments,

plan and updated it to address the unique concerns and

and on-going audits and inspections to ensure that

challenges that would be associated with a global crisis.

42 ORBIT [Vol.26 No.2 2006]

FROM THE DESK OF

The plan covers critical areas such as:

their preparedness status

Critical business and IT systems identified, potential

failure modes assessed, contingency plans estab-

lished

Global travelingconsiders border closures, break-

Global communication plans and networks, covering local and distributed workforce

Work-from-home capability and remote access to

key systems and data

down of public transportation and quarantines

In-depth evaluation of mission critical suppliers and

Significant and extended absences (20-50%); illness

prevention and response

Pandemic preparedness

Thats the differenceworking together with our custom-

Succession and delegation of authority including

ers to add value by making safety and environmental

backup of key functional and business leadership

compliance integral to everything we do for you.

[Vol.26 No.2 2006] ORBIT 43