Accident Ratio Operating System: 50% Cut in 180 Days

The ILO estimates that 2.93 million workers die each year from work-related accidents and diseases, while 395 million sustain non-fatal work injuries. This case study shows how an accident-ratio result becomes credible only when the metric is tied to field routines, executive cadence, and early-warning evidence.

1. Initial scenario: what was the real problem?

The real problem was not a single unsafe behavior, but a management system that could see accidents after they happened more clearly than it could see exposure before harm. In a multi-country food operation, the accident ratio was visible enough to alarm executives, yet the indicator alone did not explain where supervisors, contractors, and distribution sites were losing control.

During the tenure at PepsiCo South America, where the accident ratio fell 50% in six months, Andreza Araújo learned that a lagging indicator becomes useful only when leaders ask what daily routines feed it. A declining number can reflect better control, although it can also reflect weaker reporting, narrower definitions, or pressure to keep the dashboard clean.

The first diagnostic question was therefore uncomfortable: which part of the operation was producing real prevention, and which part was producing better-looking numbers? That question matters because underreporting in safety can make a bad system appear mature while serious exposures keep accumulating.

The ILO estimates that occupational accidents account for 330,000 deaths each year, which is why accident-ratio work cannot stay at the level of dashboard review. It has to reach the places where risk is produced.

2. Which decision changed the trajectory?

The decision that changed the trajectory was to treat the accident ratio as a consequence indicator, not as the safety strategy itself. Executives did not need a prettier KPI pack first. They needed a management rhythm that forced every region, plant, distribution center, and leader to explain the controls behind the number.

As Andreza Araújo argues in Safety Culture: From Theory to Practice, culture is visible in repeated decisions under pressure. That principle reframed the metric because the question moved from "What is the accident ratio?" to "Which repeated decisions are making this ratio possible?" The second question exposes supervision quality, resource allocation, corrective-action discipline, and leadership field presence.

The 180-day plan worked because it converted a lagging number into a governance trigger. Every severe exposure, weak signal, and recurring minor injury had to be translated into a decision: redesign the task, coach the supervisor, improve verification, change a schedule, or escalate a barrier failure to senior management.

180 days is short enough to test leadership discipline, but long enough to reveal whether the organization is changing how it controls work or merely campaigning harder.

3. Execution: how did the metric become an operating system?

The metric became an operating system when the review cadence moved from monthly explanation to weekly control learning. A monthly accident-ratio chart can tell leaders whether the past was acceptable. A weekly operating rhythm can tell them whether the next month is already being shaped by better decisions.

Across 25+ years leading EHS at multinationals, Andreza Araújo has observed that many companies fail at this exact conversion. They add more indicators, dashboards, and presentations, although they do not change who speaks, what evidence is reviewed, or which leader owns the next action. The result is measurement without management.

The PepsiCo South America case required a tighter sequence: define exposure priorities, verify field controls, review action aging, compare reporting quality across sites, and hold leaders accountable for closure. This is the difference between an indicator and the executive safety dashboard that actually changes decisions.

ISO explains that ISO 45001:2018 sets requirements for occupational health and safety management systems, which means the useful metric is the one that proves the system is acting. A ratio without evidence of action is only a report.

4. What did the measured result prove?

The measured result proved that accident-ratio reduction can be a cultural signal when it is backed by stronger reporting, sharper control verification, and faster leadership response. The number itself was important, but the credibility came from the management discipline around it.

In the PepsiCo South America tenure, the documented outcome was a 50% reduction in accident ratio in six months. That result should not be read as a promise that every organization can halve its rate in the same window, because the baseline, sector, leadership maturity, and operational complexity all change the curve.

The transferable lesson is more precise: when a company connects lagging indicators to daily exposure controls, it can change the accident trajectory faster than a company that treats KPIs as quarterly communication. The existing case article on how PepsiCo cut accident ratio 50% in 6 months explains the broader leadership story; this article isolates the metrics mechanism that made the result legible.

5. Which traps could have made the number false?

The main traps were underreporting, narrow classification, and treating all injuries as equal signals. A falling accident ratio can be good news, but it can also be an artifact if workers fear consequences, supervisors reclassify cases, or leaders ignore SIF precursors because they do not affect the headline rate.

In Muito Além do Zero, glossed for English readers as Far Beyond Zero, Andreza Araújo challenges the belief that a clean number is automatically a safe culture. The sharper thesis is that zero or near-zero indicators can become dangerous when they silence bad news, because the organization starts defending the image of safety rather than the reality of control.

The metric review therefore had to include counterweights. Near-miss reporting, observation quality, corrective-action aging, SIF exposure, and worker voice all tested whether the ratio was moving for the right reasons. That is why observation quality in safety metrics is not a soft cultural topic. It is evidence quality.

5 counterweights protect the accident ratio from becoming cosmetic, especially in operations where production pressure can make silence look like success.

6. What should leaders copy from the case?

Leaders should copy the governance logic, not the surface number. A 50% reduction is impressive, although the repeatable part is the way leadership linked the ratio to exposure, verification, accountability, and corrective action.

In more than 250 cultural-transformation projects supported by Andreza Araújo's team, the recurring pattern is that metrics improve sustainably only when leaders change the routines that create the data. The dashboard cannot compensate for weak supervision, slow closure, vague ownership, or a culture that punishes bad news.

The practical copy is a 6-part operating cadence: weekly review of serious exposures, monthly executive dashboard, site-by-site reporting-quality check, overdue-action escalation, supervisor coaching on recurring events, and a separate review of SIF precursors. Each item should have an owner, a due date, and evidence of field verification.

HSE reports 680,000 self-reported non-fatal workplace injuries in Great Britain in 2024/25 and 59,219 employee non-fatal injuries reported by employers under RIDDOR. That gap is a reminder that official reports and self-reports can tell different stories, which is exactly why leaders need more than one lens.

7. Comparison: accident ratio before and after governance

The accident ratio changes meaning when governance changes around it. Before governance, the number is a historical scoreboard. After governance, it becomes one evidence stream in a live management system.

The table explains why the case matters beyond the PepsiCo context. A company can have 30 factories, 168 distribution centers, or a single high-risk site, but the same principle applies: the accident ratio only earns trust when leaders can show the controls behind it.

8. How can an EHS manager apply this in 30 days?

An EHS manager can apply the case in 30 days by testing whether the current accident-ratio dashboard reflects real control quality. The goal is not to rebuild the whole system immediately, but to identify where the number is unsupported by evidence.

Start with the last 12 months of accident-ratio movement, then compare it with near-miss volume, SIF precursor reporting, corrective-action aging, and field-verification records. If the ratio improved while weak-signal reporting fell, the trend may be less mature than it looks.

The next step is to select 3 recurring exposure themes and assign an executive sponsor to each one. The sponsor should review evidence at the field level, because a dashboard reviewed only in the conference room cannot show whether a supervisor challenged the shortcut, whether a permit was verified, or whether a contractor understood the control.

Every month that an accident ratio improves without a reporting-quality test creates the risk of celebrating silence, while serious exposures keep moving through the operation unseen.

Conclusion: the number is not the transformation

The PepsiCo South America result matters because it shows that accident-ratio improvement becomes credible when the metric is connected to leadership rhythm, control evidence, and reporting quality.

If your organization wants to move from safety reporting to safety management, Andreza Araújo's work in Safety Culture: From Theory to Practice and Safety Culture Diagnosis offers a practical path for diagnosing the culture behind the indicators. For support applying that path in your operation, talk to Andreza Araújo at Andreza Araújo.