Workplace Safety at Alcoa (B) Case Solution
BACKGROUND
Alcoa was established in 1988 by Charles Martin Hall. In 1990, the company’s sales reached to $10.7 billion and sold over 2.72 million metric tons of aluminum items. In June 1987, Paul O’Neill became the CEO of the Alco Aluminum plant. This case examines the challenges faced by the CEO of the large Aluminum plant in its drive to workplace safety. He also became the company’s executive, business analyst when he declared his top concern for safety. As per the analysis of the company’s performance, it is analyzed that the company reduced the quantity of serious damages per 200000 hours worked from 9.1 in 1979 to 4.2 in 1990. The company made good progress in reducing the injury rate. In 1990, approximately 2646 injuries occurred in Alcoa plant. However, O’Neill wanted to reduce this injure rate to zero and he also believed that the organization could bring improvement by reducing the injure rate. However, doing so required the safety director to consider growth to date and examine the opportunity for improvement.
Additionally, O’ Neill wanted to provide the healthy environment to its customers and he also expected that each employee has the right to perform their duties in a safe environment. O’Neill believed in providing safety to workers and to reduce the risk of danger as he also said that most of the workers sacrificed their life in order to achieve the goals and objective of the company. In order to maintain the safety level of the organization, O’Neill structured the new designs and goals to achieve the zero injure level and also recommended the supervisor to design a model for employees which provided guidance regarding its safety concerns. In short, O’Neill focused more on the safety of the customers and he believed that if the company wanted to improve the level of safety then he should understand the manufacturing process which would lead the company to the better productive plant.
ANALYSIS
1. LEGITIMATE ISSUES
When O’Neill became the CEO of Alcoa, he took further steps to improve the safety of the workers and profitability of the company. O’Neill gave more priority to the safety of the workers. Moreover, after analyzing the weekly and monthly reports of the company, he identified that the company had to focus more on the safety measure of the workers. For the safety of the workers, the company acquired new plant in many countries along with the health and safety regulation.
It could be said that the effects of these injuries are endless. These injuries not only affect the workers but they also affect the company financially. Due to these injuries the company born a costly medical treatment and repossession time, which meant reduction in the wages of the workers. Sometimes these measures put the company into the state of depression. Moreover, the company also lost its market share in the market......................
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