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Driving EHS Transformation at JBT Corporation - Conversation with Jason Dingle, VP EHS & Security
VP of EHS and Security, JBT Corporation
Jason Dingle is the Vice President of Environmental, Health, Safety (EHS) and Security at JBT Corporation. Jason is an accomplished EHS/Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) leader with over 20 years of industry experience. He also holds the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) certification.
Prior to joining JBT Corporation, Jason served in the EHS leadership role at FMC FoodTech. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Safety and Environmental Management from the Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.
Kevin Richards serves as the Sr. Director of Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Center of Excellence at ProcessMAP Corporation. He has 35+ years of experience in leading EHS programs across various industries. In his current role, Kevin utilizes his strong industry experience to partner with customers on their process and digital transformation initiatives.
Prior to ProcessMAP, Kevin served in the EHS leadership role at several industrial companies, including Lennox and J2 Engineering. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester.
Sr. Director, EHS Center of Excellence, ProcessMAP Corporation
Kevin Richards
Hello Jason! Thank you
for joining me in this fireside chat. Can you please tell us a little bit about JBT Corporation?
Hello Kevin, thank you for inviting me to this conversation. JBT Corporation (NYSE: JBT) is a leading global technology solutions provider to high-value segments of the food and beverages industry with a focus on proteins, diversified foods, and automated system solutions. JBT designs, produces, and services sophisticated products and systems for multi-national and regional customers through its FoodTech segment. JBT also sells critical equipment and services to domestic and international air transportation customers through its AeroTech segment.
To put this in perspective, JBT’s FoodTech systems sterilize more than 50% of the world’s shelf-stable canned foods, freeze more than 50% of the world’s frozen foods, squeeze more than 75% of the world’s citrus juices, and process more than 60% of all coasted and fully cooked protein products in North America. Similarly, JBT’s AeroTech systems load more than 70% of the world’s overnight express packages, and board more than 75% of the air travelers across U.S. airports
The company generates more than $2 billion in revenues annually and employs more than 6,200 people worldwide. JBT’s sales, service, manufacturing, and sourcing operations are spread across more than 25 countries.
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
That’s indeed impressive! What is your strategic outlook on the role of EHS or Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles in driving growth for JBT?
Employee health and safety is a fundamental cornerstone of our business success. We understand risk is a part of doing business but managing this risk is a priority for all our employees. We give employees the proper tools through risk management techniques, training and empowering employees to stop work if they encounter a risk they perceive as too great. These tools, along with the management belief that all injuries can be prevented drive our Employee Health and Safety (EH&S) program. We have a corporate objective of Target Zero – “We are committed to Zero Incidents, Worldwide, Every day.”
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
That’s a commendable vision to strive towards! In this context, what role do you envision technology, and particularly EHS software, to play?
A modern EHS function is founded on ACT (Accurate, Complete, and Timely) data, intelligence, and analytics. Together, these three components help EHS stakeholders to proactively make informed decisions and also advise organizational leadership teams of explicit as well as underlying or hidden operational risks. It was critical for us to embrace modern technology and solutions to achieve this goal of proactively identifying hazards and risks, and mitigating them to protect our employees. Outdated manual systems, paper forms, or primitive tools like spreadsheets simply couldn’t support our objectives.
It is also critical to remember that the EHS team within an organization is often under tremendous stress. We get involved in many facets of the business as evolving decisions and new businesses can suddenly elevate various types of EHS risks, thereby requiring that we step in to proactively mitigate or manage such risks. In such scenarios, having a centralized and integrated EHS software platform that acts as a single source of truth becomes a fundamental enabler of well-informed and actionable safety decisions.
Finally, EHS software also helps unlock significant efficiencies for the EHS function. EHS managers often spent a considerable amount of time entering or duplicating handwritten data into spreadsheets or databases. It prevented them from actually being on the plant floor working with employees and/or advising the leadership team. With a robust EHS software platform, we have been able to leverage automation to significantly reduce the time- and labor-intensive data management processes, and accelerate the digital transformation of our global EHS initiatives.
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
Well said! What were some of the most critical characteristics of an EHS software platform you evaluated to decide whether or not such a system could drive your digital transformation initiatives?
We were very cognizant of the fact that we are not in the business of building an EHS software system. What we wanted was a trustworthy partner who could support us while we focused on keeping our employees safe during the regular course of a day’s operations. We recognized the benefits of a cloud-based platform like ProcessMAP over internal software systems.
ProcessMAP’s cloud and mobile solutions enable us to have always-on access to the latest innovations along with data security and protection through Single Sign-On (SSO) and biometric authentications while giving us complete flexibility to configure the system to our specific business processes and requirements. Being a global company with thousands of employees spread across 25+ countries, it was critical to have the system be available in multiple local languages so that all our employees could speak the same safety language. Finally, the ProcessMAP platform’s robust and seamless two-way integrations with various third-party systems, including our Human Resources Information System (HRIS), was a major factor in influencing our decision-making process.
Ultimately, we created an internal team dedicated to evaluating potential software platforms available in the market. We developed a well-defined rubric and scorecard to benchmark various solutions across factors like the flexibility of the solution to adapt to our needs, innovation roadmap, scalability, and dedicated implementation and customer-success functions, among many others. ProcessMAP’s platform scored high on all our criteria.
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
Thank you for such a great assessment! How was your experience during the implementation or roll-out of the software?
Overall, the teams at JBT and ProcessMAP collaborated well during the phased roll-out of the system. However, it is no secret that any transition is a bit challenging initially. In fact, if someone ever promises a completely seamless transition, please don’t believe them!
What definitely helped us overcome the initial hurdles was the availability of a dedicated implementation and integration team from ProcessMAP. This team was not from an IT systems integrator but rather a dedicated team of ProcessMAP subject matter experts. They patiently nurtured the relationship with our internal stakeholders and worked towards addressing some of our unique requests, such as incorporating risks into our near-miss and incident investigation programs.
What’s even more impressive is that the implementation team did not hand us over to a post-implementation customer success team. The same team continues to hold check-point calls with us, even to date. This level of customer dedication helped us build a strong rapport with each other, share open feedback, and better understand how to adopt additional solutions as the partnership between JBT and ProcessMAP continues to grow.
In fact, after the implementation was over, I presented a plaque to ProcessMAP to commemorate how well the process went, and to convey our gratitude to the tireless efforts of the ProcessMAP team.
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
We are proud of the way our teams always step up to meet and exceed customer expectations. Now, what are some of the EHS/ ESG performance improvements you have achieved thus far as part of the digital transformation initiative?
If you look at the recordable and reportable numbers, in 2020, our Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) was 0.97, which is better than the 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) average of 4.18 for the industries in which we operate. Our Lost Workday Care Incident Rate of 0.13 was also better than the 2019 BLS average of 2.4.
Source – https://www.jbtc.com/about-us/esg/social
We have deployed a global Near Miss reporting program, in which potentially unsafe conditions or behaviors are proactively reported and corrected before they become an injury. In 2020, more than 13,000 near-miss incidents were reported by our employees, for an average of 2.15 incidents reported per employee. Our goal was for each employee to report at least 1.50 such incidents.
In addition to the metrics I have already mentioned, some of the other qualitative improvements include:
- Significant improvement of our EHS data
- We can now clearly associate Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPAs) with leading indicators, and thereby create measurable goals for leading indicators over lagging indicators.
The simple and easy-to-use user interface and user experience have helped to significantly increase user adoption and user engagement. This stakeholder participation and engagement is priceless when it comes to driving EHS digital transformation initiatives.
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
The results and the transformation are beyond impressive! As you reflect on this journey, what are some pearls of wisdom you would like to share with other EHS leaders or stakeholders?
There are three key takeaways I would highlight from our experience in leveraging technology to drive our EHS/ESG transformation initiatives:
- EHS risks continuously evolve along with the changing business and operational landscape. Take the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. EHS leaders should not hesitate to think beyond the obvious about how technology can help with immediate, short-term and long-term goals
- Because risks are evolving, EHS leaders need an EHS software partner who can co-innovate breakthrough solutions. Having a flexible, configurable, and integrated EHS platform goes a long way in helping all safety stakeholders achieve their individual EHS goals
- Finally, don’t hesitate to discard the “we have always done so in this way” approach to learn from your peers from diverse industries, regions and backgrounds. ProcessMAP’s bi-weekly EHS leadership roundtables have been a great platform for us to learn about best practices and strategies adopted by other ProcessMAP customers, and adapt some of those ideas for JBT
Jason Dingle
Kevin Richards
– Thank you, Jason! It has been an absolute pleasure to sit with you today and get a firsthand account of leading a major EHS transformation program. Thank you for your time and your trust in ProcessMAP! We look forward to supporting you as a trustworthy partner as you and your team scale greater heights of success.
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