The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri is marking 2016 as its “best year ever” in safety performance.
The NNSA site that produces non-nuclear components used in nuclear weapons said in an emailed statement that despite a 20 percent increase in new employees throughout the year, safety incidents fell by 56 percent. Roughly 3,200 employees currently work at the site.
Site spokeswoman Shaunda Parks said the Kansas City campus in 2016 reported four Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) incidents – two “slip, trip and falls” in a hallway, one minor allergic reaction, and an automobile accident during business travel.
This ranks the site’s safety record among the 95th percentile of similar organizations nationwide, by OSHA standards, the statement said. Other similar organizations under OSHA are those involved with electronic assembly and circuit board manufacturing; according to Parks, “our results are lower than organizations in those categories.”
“We attribute our strong safety performance to the Honeywell Operating System, which enables leaders and employees at all levels of our organization to drive a continuous improvement culture,” Don Fitzpatrick, Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies’ director of health, safety, and environment, said in an emailed statement.
Honeywell’s operating system includes productivity practices such as keeping meetings short – under 15 minutes – and soliciting ideas for improvement from workers at all levels on a regular basis, among the implementation of other management principles.
The future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should be shaped by strengthening its conventional and nuclear capabilities as well as bolstering dialogue with Russia, experts said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The arrival of the Donald Trump administration has put NATO’s future “in doubt to some degree,” said Alexander Vershbow, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and former NATO deputy secretary general, alluding to Trump’s previous comments suggesting U.S. allies have not paid their fair share into the alliance.
Vershbow said NATO should continue its dialogue with Russia, as the relationship today is “prone to potential accidents.” This dialogue should include confidence-building and risk-reduction measures, he said, and could eventually lead to other forms of practical cooperation that aid Trump’s goal to improve relations with the country.
Meanwhile, Franklin Miller, principal of The Scowcroft Group, recommended that NATO strengthen its conventional capabilities in Europe to counter “Russian adventurism along the NATO-Russian border.” NATO should also “more seriously acknowledge the nuclear threat from Russia,” which includes the Kremlin’s ongoing nuclear modernization efforts as it develops new ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, bombers, and other systems, Miller said.
He said NATO should also modernize its dual-capable aircraft and the B-61 nuclear gravity bomb, conduct realistic exercises to ensure theater-based nuclear forces can carry out their mission, and practice regional deployment of nuclear-capable aircraft between NATO countries.
The United States should continue modernization of its nuclear triad, Miller also said, which, along with the capabilities of the United Kingdom and France, underpins NATO’s deterrent power.
From The Wires:
From Bloomberg: U.S. Strategic Command and national intelligence agencies assessing whether leaders in Russia and China could survive a nuclear attack.
From Roll Call: Defense Science Board calls for more lower-yield nuclear weapons that could offer a “tailored nuclear option for limited use.”
