Welcome to the 13th article in a series. This article will discuss establishing accountabilities and a reporting system so that the critical controls are effectively managed.
As mentioned in previous articles, the Critical Control Management (CCM) process includes good practice risk assessment and analysis methods, plus an important greatly improved ingredient; more systematic management.
The last article addressed the careful definition of the verification mechanisms that gather data in a timely and effective manner. This is the ‘check’ in the Plan-Do-Check-Act model of management. Now we need effective reporting to connect the ‘check’ (verification) with the ‘act’ or action to improve by setting the accountabilities and defining the verification data-related information that should be reported to the accountable individuals.
Setting accountabilities for CC verification and reporting
The illustration below suggests an ownership model to set accountabilities for critical control verification and reporting. A site or company identifies several priority unwanted events (PUEs) that are included in their CCM initiative. Each of the PUEs is assigned to an owner. The owner is usually a line manager with responsibilities that include the activities where the PUE could occur. For example, at a site level the production manager could be the owner of a PUE related to vehicle collisions. If the CCM initiative is managed at the corporate level the vehicle collision PUE might be owned by a production executive.