Project Lifesaver (PLS) was formed in 2003 by American Contractor Insurance Group (ACIG) and its 40 general contractor members (of which Graycor is one) as an aggressive loss reduction initiative to reduce incidents and the expected losses associated with them. As part of the program, ACIG developed a strategic plan to address every member’s individual issues which includes four key elements:

Contractor Ranking – based upon objective criteria;
Safety Service Team Reports – developed for each contractor;
Safety Strategic Planning Sessions – with each member’s executive leadership; and
Contractor Action Plan – includes PLS progress, best practices, key initiatives, focus areas, goals, challenges, networking requests and ACIG support.

The goal of the first four-year phase of PLS was to reduce the frequency of accidents by 40%, which was met. The PLS process was so successful that ACIG, Graycor and all members decided to continue PLS because our efforts were helping keep tradesmen safe. Since PLS was implemented incident rates for the entire membership have decreased by 61% for workers’ comp, 74% for general liability and 54% for auto liability. This past November 2013 was no different as we met in Oakbrook Terrace, IL to work on our 2014 PLS Contractor Action Plan and continue our safety journey toward zero incidents.

During the past 10 years, ACIG and Graycor have worked together on continuous improvement safety systems that benefited the entire ACIG Membership. Examples of this continuous improvement model include:

Safety Best Practice Benchmarking, Root Cause Investigation Training, Life-Saving Commitments, Compliance to Commitment Workshops, Support Operations Safety Review, Safety Culture Reviews, Zero Injury Process Perception Surveys and Fleet Safety Task Force.

The PLS journey is not yet complete and we still have work to do in our effort to have zero incidents. In the months and years to come, we continue our quest of life saving and re-focus on Serious Injury and Fatality (SIF) risk potential. Until we have ZERO accidents and incidents we have never done enough