Fluor Corporation has always been proud of its competence in security. This was one of the core values of the company, and Fluor achieved remarkable safety record complex projects around the world. But now, in the spring of 1997, Fluor was the control of the Western Hemisphere's largest environmental cleanup site, Hanford reservation in Washington state. Hanford was created as part of the Manhattan Project in 1940, which gave birth to the atomic bomb. Hanford produced plutonium for nearly two-thirds of the United States during the Cold War. Hanford was half of Rhode Island, covering 586 square kilometers in the south-eastern state of Washington. Cleaning, which began in 1988, is expected to take 30 years or more. Improve safety at Hanford was proving to be a serious problem. As a new site manager at Hanford, Fluor Hanford (FH) inherited the lower and middle-level managers and thousands of union employees, many of whom were in their second or third generation of Hanford workers. These staff members have seen many contractors have come and gone over the previous years. Some of the managers who worked with the previous contractor Fluor saw emphasis on safety, preventing operation. Union / management relations were capricious. Hanford culture has been described as "the production of controlled management told everyone what to do, and if you have not already done so, the consequences." Worker participation in the development and implementation of safety programs was low. FH also had problems meeting their clients, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
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by Andrew C. Inkpen, Michael Moffett Source: Thunderbird School of Global Management 13 pages. Publication Date: September 11, 2009. Prod. #: TB0023-PDF-ENG
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