The Capacity Model
At Quanta Services, the most important commitment we make is ensuring that every one of our employees returns home safely each day.
In 2020, in partnership with Northwest Lineman College (NLC), Quanta developed The Capacity Model™ and embarked on a journey to start thinking about safety differently with a vision of eliminating life-threatening, life-altering and life-ending events.
At the core of The Capacity Model™ is a human performance philosophy which embraces the fact that error is normal and people will make mistakes. That acknowledgment, coupled with an increased understanding of how people interact with their work environments, enables Quanta to more effectively identify hazards and put in place targeted protections (controls). There are three pillars that support The Capacity Model™:
- Prevention: Continue to work at preventing incidents from occurring.
- Learning: Accept that mistakes are inevitable in life and business; learn from them to improve prevention and build capacity.
- Capacity for Failure: Apply enough controls to absorb the consequences of an incident safely when a failure occurs.
The Capacity Model™ is not a program or initiative but a different approach to how we plan, execute and learn from work. This includes consistent identification of hazards and effectively controlling exposure to those hazards to protect our employees, the environment and the people in the communities in which we work.
Quanta strives to continuously learn and improve. As such, it is actively working to integrate The Capacity Model™ into its systems and processes as well as enabling our leaders, managers and crew personnel to build and maintain the capacity to fail safely.
The Capacity Model Elements
STKY (Stuff That Kills You)
A concept that focuses on hazards that can seriously injure or kill people.
STKY Controls
Critical safety controls required of all employees.
Operational Learning
Teams of workers led by a facilitator who analyze workplace safety, including job briefings, post-work debriefs, routine safety inspections, job hazard analyses, successful operations, near-miss incidents and incidents resulting in an injury, illness or environmental exposure. The goal is to learn more about the context of an event. This approach helps companies reproduce successful outcomes or, for a safety or health incident, actually improve safety rather than just simply affix blame.
The Energy Wheel
A hazard-identification tool used prior to or during work.
