The USMC Global War on Error® (GWOE) Initiative
In 2003–2004, Marine Corps aviation experienced the worst safety and fatality period in its history, with nearly all of the mishaps caused by pilot error. Convergent Performance was tasked with fixing the problem by “operationalizing” the safety program. The decision was made to begin a five-year initiative that would focus on three levels of training and enhanced awareness. The results were both substantial and undeniable.
Following the success of our GWOE program with the Marine Corps, several additional organizations in different industries sought our help.
The Package Company
From 1994–2009 seven accidents—that were mostly driven by human error—completely destroyed seven aircraft, injured multiple personnel, and claimed two lives at a major US package company. They’d heard about the success of the GWOE program, and wanted something similar for their company. GWOE was licensed to a partner company who delivered a five-year human factors training program, starting in 2009. The specific focus was to educate and motivate experienced line pilots towards higher levels of compliance, personal and peer-to-peer accountability, and continuous improvement.
Lawrence and Memorial Surgical Quality and Safety
Our next opportunity came from a hospital network that was struggling with their surgical safety culture, quality assurance, and teamwork, all which were eroding the confidence of staff and the community they serve. Convergent Performance assessed the situation and designed training to counter the specific issues in their network. The result was a 95% reduction in serious safety events within three years, and sustained improvements in patient and employee satisfaction. Almost a decade later, the changes and improvements to culture and quality are still holding strong, despite the passage of time and staff turnover.
Large Service Center Network
This network had been plagued by over a decade of extremely high rates of “technician induced damage” resulting in over $35M in insurance claims. After researching the costliest errors in aviation maintenance worldwide, errors that result in over $40 billion dollars in damage annually, we created the Aviation Maintenance Never Events® program to address the top six errors. For the first time in over a decade, the Service Center Network had zero claims due to technician induced damage in the first year following the training, and has not had an insurance claim now for over five years.
Operational Challenge at a Major U.S Air Carrier
In addition to many of the elements above, the program we developed for a major U.S. airline carrier included multiple operational challenges. The first focused on one of the greatest operational threats to safety in the industry. In a 30-day period, this carrier improved its already industry-leading stabilized approach rate by half, based on the previous five-year average. As a byproduct, the carrier also improved their Go-Around rate by greater than one-third. Because of this success, more challenges are planned to address other operations criteria.
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