How PepsiCo South America Cut Accident Ratio 50% in 6 Months

A leadership case only matters when the result changes how the next decision is made. In PepsiCo South America, Andreza Araujo helped lead a 180-day plan that cut accident ratio 50% in 6 months, and the useful lesson was not that people suddenly became perfect. The lesson was that leaders moved closer to the work, checked evidence sooner, and stopped treating drift as normal.

Across 25+ years leading EHS in multinationals, Andreza Araujo has seen that culture changes when repeated decisions change, which is why the case belongs in safety leadership rather than in a generic success story. In Make The Difference: Be a Leader in Health & Safety, she argues that leadership is measured by what it changes under pressure. This case fits that idea because the gain came from a plan whose cadence stayed close to the field, where weak signals could no longer hide behind good intentions.

If your own leadership team still decides safety from a spreadsheet, the related safety decision rights matrix shows why authority has to sit next to the hazard. The same logic appears in production manager safety escalation rhythm, because a leader who cannot see the next decision cannot change the next result.

Initial scenario

The operating context was not small or simple. PepsiCo South America Foods covered 7 countries, 30 factories, and 168 distribution centers, so the problem was never going to be solved by a one-off campaign. A network like that creates many places where production pressure, supervision gaps, and local habits can turn into repeated exposure if leaders wait too long to verify what is really happening.

That is the first point this case makes clear. A large operation does not need more slogans. It needs a rhythm in which the right people can see the right evidence early enough to act, which is why James Reason still matters here, because latent conditions, not the last person in the chain, shape how the loss eventually appears. When the system keeps rewarding speed without checking the condition, the organization invites drift and then acts surprised when the metric follows.

Decision

The decision was to stop treating accident reduction as a campaign and start treating it as a management system problem. That sounds obvious now, but many teams still mix awareness, training, and poster work with actual control. The case moved in another direction, since the plan focused on leadership cadence, field verification, and accountability that could not be ignored once production pressure rose.

Andreza Araujo has repeated this point in her work on safety culture, including Safety Culture: From Theory to Practice. Culture is the pattern of decisions that survive pressure, not the speech that sounds best in the meeting room. A 180-day plan works only when it names who reviews the evidence, who closes the gap, and who must answer when the field still does not match the expectation.

That decision also changed the kind of question leaders asked. Instead of asking whether the site had enough training hours, they had to ask whether the control was active, whether supervisors were reacting fast enough, and whether the field was being checked before risk was normalized. The shift mattered because it reduced the distance between the problem and the person who could actually move it.

Execution

The execution logic is the part most teams skip when they try to copy a result. A reduction like this does not come from a single tool, because no single tool can repair a network of factories and distribution centers. It comes from a discipline in which leaders review the right signal often enough that weak controls do not stay hidden until the next loss.

Across more than 250 cultural transformation projects, Andreza Araujo has seen that the strongest change happens when the operating rhythm is simple, repeated, and close to the work. In this case, the useful pattern was a plan whose review cycle stayed near the field and where supervisors could escalate quickly instead of carrying unresolved risk for another week. That matters because a short delay can turn a manageable deviation into routine exposure.

In practical terms, the case suggests three moves. First, leaders need a visible review cadence that cannot be skipped without explanation. Second, supervisors need enough authority to stop normal drift before it becomes a habit. Third, field evidence has to arrive in time to change the next decision, not only to decorate the monthly report. If those three moves are weak, the plan may still look active while the loss pattern remains untouched.

Measured result

The measured result is the one fact that anchors the case and keeps it honest. Under the 180-day plan, accident ratio fell 50% in 6 months. That is the public result, and it matters because it shows that the plan changed more than language. A result like that is not a slogan, because a slogan does not cut loss in half across a real operating network.

Generalizable lessons

The first lesson is that leadership cadence changes outcomes when it reaches the field fast enough to matter. A plan can be impressive on paper and still fail if nobody sees the weak point before the next shift. This is where the case becomes useful outside PepsiCo, because any operation with moving production pressure can use the same logic.

The second lesson is that decision rights are not an administrative detail. If a supervisor cannot pause, escalate, or correct a condition without waiting for three layers of approval, the organization is asking that person to carry risk without control. Andreza Araujo has written about that problem in Make The Difference: Be a Leader in Health & Safety, where leaders are judged by the decisions they enable, not by the slogans they repeat.

The third lesson is that field evidence beats comforting belief. When leaders ask whether a control is active, who owns it, and what changed after the last review, they are doing more than checking a box. They are building a system in which weak barriers can be seen while there is still time to fix them.

The fourth lesson is that culture is not a mood. Culture is the pattern in which people respond to pressure, and that pattern is visible in small decisions that repeat every day. In Safety Culture: From Theory to Practice, Andreza Araujo treats that repetition as the real operating model, which is why this case is more than a past win. It is a template for how a leader changes the next cycle.

What to apply in your operation

Start with one metric that matters, one leader who can move it, and one cadence that forces a review before drift becomes normal. If you run a plant, a distribution network, or a multi-site operation, do not begin with a broad campaign. Begin with the part of the system where the weakest control is most likely to fail, then make the owner report what changed in the field, not only what changed on the slide.

Then connect the metric to decision rights. Ask who can stop the job, who can change the priority, who can demand a recheck, and who must answer if the field evidence no longer matches the plan. If that chain is unclear, the operation will keep confusing activity with control, which is why the decision rights matrix is one of the fastest ways to sharpen the next leadership discussion.

For executives and EHS leaders, the practical rule is simple. If you cannot point to the review cadence, the field evidence, and the owner who changed the next decision, you do not yet have a leadership system. You have an intention. Andreza Araujo's case at PepsiCo South America shows that the difference between those two is large enough to cut the accident ratio in half.

For readers who want the broader leadership frame, the book Make The Difference: Be a Leader in Health & Safety is the cleanest next step, because it turns this kind of result into a repeatable practice instead of a one-time story.

FAQ

Why does this case belong in safety leadership instead of safety culture?

Because the central change was a management decision about cadence, review, and accountability. Culture still mattered, but the result came from leadership behavior that changed what was checked, when it was checked, and who had to answer for the field condition.

What is the strongest fact in the case?

The strongest public fact is the result itself, which is the 50% accident ratio reduction in 6 months. That number matters because it ties the story to an outcome that is large enough to show real movement, not just better language.

Can a smaller operation copy this approach?

Yes, because the logic does not depend on size. A smaller site still needs one owner, one review cadence, and one field evidence loop. The scale changes, but the decision problem is the same.

Which Andreza Araujo book fits this topic best?

Make The Difference: Be a Leader in Health & Safety fits the leadership side, and Safety Culture: From Theory to Practice fits the repetition and culture side. Together they explain why repeated decisions under pressure matter more than the speech that sounds best.

What should a supervisor copy first?

Copy the review rhythm before copying the language. A supervisor who can see the field early, escalate quickly, and close the loop will usually create more value than a supervisor who merely repeats the right safety phrases.