safety

The Capacity Model™

A SAFER WAY TO PLAN, EXECUTE, & LEARN FROM WORK

The Capacity Model™ aims to eliminate life-threatening, life-altering, and life-ending events by focusing on human performance and building the capacity to fail safely.

The rate of reduction in occupational injuries has slowed in recent years, despite numerous injury and illness prevention programs. We at Quanta recognized the need for a new system to continue to drive positive change. The Capacity Model™ was developed in conjunction with our workers and industry-leading experts as a bold and different way to approach workplace safety. The Capacity Model™ demands that we honestly assess reality so that successes don’t happen by chance and that failures don’t kill us. We have one simple and consuming goal: zero life-threatening, life-altering, or life-ending events.

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We’re a family and we want you to go home to yours.

Earl C. “Duke” Austin Jr.

President and Chief Executive Officer

Quanta Services

NOT THE SAME OLD SAFETY TALK

We don’t get better doing things the same way. From the ground up, The Capacity Model™ is designed to engage with—and evolve because of—our workers.

Consumable

Training written for specific audiences

Sustainable

Integrated over time, requiring more than simple class attendance

Field Focused

Focused on learning about how work actually takes place from the people who know the work best

Practical

Grounded in real solutions at the field level

Leadership Enabled

Initiated by changing the leadership narrative and approach to work, which motivates and supports those working in the field to do the same

Adult Education Informed

Facilitated by adult education principles with a clear focus on how craft workers learn and retain new information

TIME TO GET REAL

In the context of work, human performance refers to the ways people interact with their work environment—their systems, processes, equipment, people, physical environment, and organizational culture.

Our workers operate in dynamic settings and must account for and deal with constantly changing conditions. Leaders and workers who embrace the Quanta Human Performance Principles are able to find realistic methods to allow for failure to occur safely because they understand how normal human behavior plays out on the jobsite.

Prevention, Learning, Capacity for Failure

THE THREE PILLARS OF THE CAPACITY MODEL™

All three pillars must work together to protect the safety of our workers.

Prevention is necessary, but it is not enough. We’ve established a learning-based philosophy that allows our organization to adapt and mature, building upon successes and failures identified through collaboration with our workers. Using what we’ve learned, we put controls in place that allow failure to occur safely and reduce the consequences of unwanted events.

STUFF THAT KILLS YOU

Our crews learn to identify the STKY scenarios on their jobsite before the work begins. Significant events are a result of a release or transfer of energy that can’t be absorbed safely. When high-energy exposure exists, we must have the capacity to fail safely.
Stuff That Kills You Logo

THE ENERGY WHEEL

The Energy Wheel is a hazard-identification tool that helps workers systematically evaluate the types of energy they are exposed to on the jobsite before work begins. The Energy Wheel focuses on hazards that can cause a life-threatening, life-altering, or life-ending injury, allowing our workers to build the capacity to fail safely.
Quanta Energy Wheel

OPERATIONAL LEARNING & LEARNING TEAMS

Focus on how work is done instead of what went wrong

Learning teams work to identify the context in which their work is done. By examining both successes and challenges on the jobsite, learning teams provide recommendations to continually improve our processes and systems.

STKY CONTROLS

It’s not if failure will occur, but when. We are putting controls in place that allow failure to occur safely and mitigate the consequences of STKY events: life-threatening, life-altering, or life-ending events.

The Capacity Model™ is not about changing or fixing the workforce. By focusing on building the capacity to fail safely in our work, the Capacity Model™ helps us reach our ultimate goal: bringing all workers home safely.

WE ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE DO SAFETY