Following the completion of 500,000 manhours without incident in January 2019, the Anova and Corteva Agriscience team celebrated another landmark achievement of one million manhours without an incident in the Fall of 2020.
Achieving one million manhours with zero recordable incidents on multiple job sites, in different states and at times outside of the United States, was no small accomplishment for the Anova and Corteva Agriscience team. This extraordinary achievement was the result of a group of individuals who took pride in and owned the goal of zero accidents.
“The relationship between Anova and Corteva Agriscience has been a mutually beneficial and successful partnership since 2012,” says Tim Isle, Anova President. “Since then, projects have been managed and completed successfully in many cultures and countries, including numerous projects on the Indianapolis campus.”
Corteva Agriscience continues to provide access to global leading initiatives in personnel and construction project safety, and strongly encourages and contributes to the ‘partnership’ approach. As a subcontractor-vendor in the Owner’s Technical Representation and Safety Management, Anova operates within the Corteva Agriscience communication structure and are respected internally and treated as part of the Corteva Agriscience Team. Since we share the same resources, goals, learning experiences, and successes, this dynamic creates a positive culture based on project safety and personnel safety.
“Anova is always accepting safety challenges locally and abroad,” states Mike Sharpe, FS&RE Engineering Leader for Corteva Agriscience. “They consistently deliver safety programs with exceptional results. Anova’s ability to stay flexible and provide solutions without limiting our core safety values has continued to grow our partnership.”
Regarding culture, the goals in construction safety were already intact. Still, Anova is excited about the opportunity to help manage the day-to-day safety of workers on construction projects within a healthy, positive reinforcement and communication-driven organization as a subcontractor.
“As an industry leader in construction safety, the Anova and Corteva team seemed like a great fit from the beginning,” says Josh Whitt, Director of Operations for Anova. “Throughout the years, we have trained together, succeeded together, and sometimes failed and learned lessons together, just like successful teams do.
“Speaking from personal experience, I can say that as a whole, Corteva Agriscience treats us as employees, with the same regard to accountability, recognition, and results. Over time, our partnership has become productive and rewarding.”
A GLOBAL IMPACT ON SAFETY
While many of our projects have been in the United States, we’ve safely delivered numerous projects in different countries, climates, and cultures. Each project presents unique challenges that we must identify, plan for, and overcome. Each time we set foot in a new location, Anova establishes a partnership mentality where we work to educate and guide local contractors through the safety requirements of the project. This partnership ensures everyone understands the positive impact that a safe work environment has on the project team and community.
A great example includes a project we completed at Indianopolis MG, Brazil. The local contractors were not expected to uphold the same safety standards as would be required for our projects. To overcome this challenge, Anova works with contractors to review their current safety plans and identify gaps in their safety protocols to develop an improved safety plan. This process ensures the contractors are set up for success to meet the safety requirements of the project.
“We’ve found this partnership approach to be much more effective than simply sending local contractors the project’s safety requirements and telling them to follow them,” said Cameron Smith, Senior Project Manager with Anova. “Once we kick off a project, continuous feedback and monitoring of the safety plan is required to ensure worker buy-in and the plan’s effectiveness.”
MANAGING SAFETY DURING A TIME OF TRANSITION
In 2019, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont launched its spin-off agriculture company, Corteva Agriscience. Corteva Agriscience brings together DuPont Crop Protection, DuPont Pioneer, and Dow AgroSciences to create the largest market-shaping, standalone agriculture company in the world with leading positions in Seed Technologies, Crop Protection, and Digital Agriculture.
The company has developed some of the best talent, technology, innovation, and R&D capabilities that uniquely position it to transform our food system by helping farmers grow better, abundant, and healthier crops while using fewer natural resources.
During this transition, we encountered technical issues with new equipment, training programs, revised Core Permits, and new safety policies. Together as a team, Corteva and Anova worked diligently to achieve a common goal and persevered during the transition, both locally and globally, to ensure a harmonious policy and safety environment.
“Even at a local level at the Corteva Indianapolis location, we worked with several contractors who were not familiar with the site prequalification program or site safety policies,” says Bryan King, Anova Safety and Quality Professional. “We took all the necessary steps to provide the required documentation and training for them to work efficiently and safely.”
Not only is Corteva Agriscience a local Indianapolis company, but also a world-leading safety-focused agriculture company with the capabilities to shape and influence the safety programs and performance of contractors around the globe.
These projects include men and women working together with complex tools and equipment and are exposed to the elements and the hazards of construction, operations, and maintenance in our facility that houses the world’s hope for the future.
One of these projects included a contractor from Sweden who Corteva hired to install new equipment and robotics on a project for enhanced research to be conducted. Challenged by the language barrier and safety protocols, Anova worked directly with the contractor each day to review the daily tasks, potential safety hazards, precautions to be taken throughout the installation, and direction for an appropriate daily JSA issued for approval.
“The safety culture Corteva and Anova have created for site-specific locations and projects throughout the years are the absolute finest,” states King. “Both teams are continuously training, developing, revising, and implementing additional programs to ensure the safety of contractors, vendors, Corteva, and Anova employees.”
Congratulations on this huge success!
