Safety & Wellness

We continue to make significant strides in safety and wellness by implementing innovative programs and partnering with our employees, with regulators, and with our communities.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (OSHA) VOLUNTARY PROTECTION PROGRAM (VPP)

VPP is OSHA’s premier program for recognizing worksites with exemplary safety programs that satisfy rigorous criteria. Our goal is to have all of our major U.S. sites participating in the OSHA VPP by 2013. Through 2011, we have 22 VPP “Star” certified locations, at which approximately 36,000, or 50%, of our employees work. Raytheon’s three largest operating locations, Andover, Mass.; El Segundo, Calif.; and Tucson, Ariz., have been awarded VPP “Star” certification and each represents the largest VPP site in their respective state.

Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) is OSHA’s premier program for recognizing worksites with exemplary safety programs that satisfy rigorous criteria. Through 2011, we have 22 VPP “Star” certified locations where approximately 36,000 employees work. By 2013, our goal is to attain OSHA VPP “Star” certification at all of our major domestic sites.

Injury prevention

Providing an injury-free workplace is a priority at all levels of the company. From our board of directors, our CEO and senior leadership team, to employees on the shop floor, we are actively engaged in tracking our injury rates and taking steps to eliminate injuries.

In moving toward our ultimate goal of an injury-free workplace, Raytheon tracks three OSHA performance measures: recordable injury rate; lost workday injury rate; and Days Away/Restricted or Transferred Rate (DART). Since 1999, Raytheon has reduced its OSHA recordable injury rate by 72% and its lost workday injury rate by 65%. In 2011, through best-in-class safety programs and strong leadership engagement, our recordable injury rate decreased 21% from 0.73 to 0.58, our lost workday injury rate decreased 27% from 0.22 to 0.16 and our DART rate decreased 23% from 0.35 to 0.27.

Leading injury cases and solutions

The leading causes of injury within the company are ergonomics and slips, trips and falls. We define ergonomic injuries broadly to include repetitive motion injuries and other injuries that involve pushing, pulling, lifting or lowering. During 2011, in our continuing effort to incorporate Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) considerations into Raytheon’s core processes, we successfully integrated safety and ergonomics into the Lean Manufacturing initiative. We also focused on reducing injuries through awareness initiatives, including an innovative EHS/Ethics vignette highlighting the risks of injury from slips, falls and distractions.

Integrated disability program

Raytheon is an industry leader in all phases of occupational and non-occupational disability management. Through the use of innovative tools, training and educational initiatives, we focus on early intervention and safe returns to a productive work setting.

These goals are accomplished through collaboration among key functional disciplines across the company. Our Integrated Disability Programs, Global Health Resources, EHS and Communications teams have partnered to reduce non-occupational injuries and illnesses by highlighting the need for employees to be safe both on and off the job. Through Raytheon’s extensive communications network, messages to employees build awareness of common non-occupational injuries and preventive techniques to ensure our employees’ health and safety.

Environmental, health and safety audits

Our robust EHS internal audit program performs approximately 25 audits per year to assess compliance with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, as well as internal policies and standards. Locations are prioritized for audits based on risk and complexity of operations. The types of audits performed include compliance, OSHA VPP gap assessments and OSHA recordability.

Compliance

We look to our regulatory compliance record to help measure the effectiveness of our EHS audit program. In 2011, federal, state and local regulatory agencies conducted 142 environmental, health and safety inspections of Raytheon operating locations. Three notices of violation (NOV) were issued. Two related to electrical safety issues, with one resulting in a fine of $11,600. The third related to a point of contact update requirement on a safety plan, where no fine was assessed. We perform a thorough root-cause analysis for each NOV and share “lessons learned” across the company to prevent recurrence.