Safety at Fluor Hanford (A) Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

This is a Thunderbird Case Study. Fluor Corporation has mostly prided itself on its proficiency in security. It was a core value of the company, and Fluor had reached outstanding safety records on complex jobs all over the world. But now, in the spring of 1997, Fluor found itself managing the biggest environmental clean-up site of the Western Hemisphere, the Hanford reservation in Washington State. The Hanford website was created as part of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s that gave birth to the atomic bomb. Hanford made nearly two thirds of U.S. plutonium during the Cold War period. The Hanford site was half the size of Rhode Island, inhabiting 586 square miles in southeastern Washington State. The cleanup that started in 1988 was expected to take 30 years or more. Enhancing safety at Hanford was proving to be a significant challenge. As the new site manager at Hanford, Fluor Hanford (FH) inherited lesser- and mid-level supervisors and thousands of unionized workers, many of whom were second- or third-generation Hanford employees.

These employees had found many contractors come and go over the previous years. Some of the managers who had worked with the previous contractor saw Fluor's emphasis on security as getting in the way of operations. Marriage/management relationships were fractious. Hanford's culture was described as "creation powered-management told everyone what to do, and, if you didn't do it, there were effects." Worker participation in designing and implementing safety systems was insignificant. FH also was having trouble fulfilling its client, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Safety at Fluor Hanford (A) case study solution

PUBLICATION DATE: September 11, 2009 PRODUCT #: TB0021-PDF-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about LEADERSHIP & MANAGING PEOPLE