Safety

Providing a safe workplace demands strong leadership, involves employees, and requires safety processes that are monitored effectively.

Our Approach

In the U.S., we ensure substantial compliance with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and all other applicable regulatory requirements in the countries where we operate.

Our Safety Performance Metrics Program provides a template for all safety programs — across all Brown-Forman production sites — and assigns safety oversight to a key person at each location. A portion of each production facility manager's performance evaluation and bonus depends on meeting our safety and environmental standards.

Actions

We measure total safety performance at our production facilities by evaluating leadership, processes, employee involvement and results. The individual metrics categories include OSHA standards such as machine guarding, electrical safety, personal protective equipment, and powered industrial trucks, as well as industrial hygiene, contractor and visitor safety and employee training, and health and safety meetings.

The F09 Metrics scores ranged from 86% to 99%, with an average score of 95% for all of our plants.

Performance


Lost Time Case Rate

Lost Time Case Rate

Lost Time Case: Any occupational injury or illness which results in an employee being unable to work a full assigned work shift. Lost time cases occur when there are no reasonable circumstances under which the injured employee could return to meaningful work.

Lost Time Case Rate: A mathematical calculation that describes the number of lost time cases per 100 full-time employees in any given time frame.

The Lost Time Case Rate (LTC) uses the number of cases that contained lost work days. The calculation is made by multiplying the number of incidents that were lost time cases by 200,000 and then dividing that by the employee labor hours at the company.

Data is now calculated using calendar year versus fiscal year which partially accounts for data refinement from prior report. Data is now being calculated using calendar year numbers for the purpose of regulatory and industry comparison.

Lost time case rate is a moving target as cases can change over time from recordable to lost time due to surgical intervention or doctor prescription for time off at a later date for the same case.

*through June 30, 2009