Dow Chemical Company

Safety Management System of DOW Chemical Company

1. Corporate Safety Policy

The Dow Chemical Company has a very strong corporate safety policy which is aligned with our corporate values. The entire organization is driven to place safety at the highest level of importance in everything we do. So, from the top down we have a safety culture within the global organization which supports our commitment to require excellent safety performance on our project sites.

2.      Corporate Safety Rules

The Dow Chemical Company, over the past many years, has developed some best-in-class safety rules which are applied globally across the corporation. These rules were developed as a result of previous incidents/injuries. We are required to be in full compliance of these safety rules.

1. Pre-qualification of Construction Contractors

Dow wants to hire contractors who have a commitment to executing projects safely. Prior to the bidding process, we take the time to pre-qualify the contractors so we only allow qualified and capable contractors to bid on the work. There are many considerations to examine during the pre-qualification process. An important element of the process is to visit a jobsite where the contractor is currently working and observer the work they are performing. It should be apparent through field observations, that the contractor is demonstrating many/most of the good safety practices which we expect to see on our construction site. If the jobsite is disorganized, messy, or we see significant deficiencies in their field execution, then we do not allow them to bid on the contract.

4.      Knowledgeable and Committed Owner Construction Manager

We do whatever is possible in finding a knowledgeable and committed Dow employee to serve as the Construction Manager (CM) for all of our construction projects. We firmly believe that this is a key to our safety success because the Dow CM understands Dow’s expectations and is responsible/accountable for completing the project without injuries. The CM has many other responsibilities, such as Quality, Schedule, and Cost, however Safety excellence is the first priority and is usually the most difficult part of the CM’s job. We firmly believe that Safety is not only the responsibility of the Safety Manager’s job – it is part everyone’s job.

5.      Knowledgeable and Committed Owner Project Safety Manager

We do whatever is possible in finding a knowledgeable and committed Dow employee to serve as Safety Manager for projects over 25million USD. 

6.      Safety Audits and Safety Observations

We conduct daily and weekly safety audits and safety observations to ensure that the construction workers are performing their work in compliance with our safety rules. We track the behavior performance data and report the data to the contractors. We work to eliminate the problem behaviors, such as poor housekeeping, or failure to correctly wear PPE.