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Sun Coast Remediation Course Project Guidance

Background

To help make a connection between business research and its use in the real world, this course

will use an iterative course project. Throughout the term, you will serve as the health and safety

director for Sun Coast Remediation (Sun Coast).

Sun Coast provides remediation services to business and governmental organizations. Most of

their contracts involve working within contamination sites where they remove toxic substances

from soil and water. In addition to the toxicity of the air, water, and soil their employees come

into contact with, the work environment is physically demanding and potentially contributory to

injuries involving musculoskeletal systems, vision, and hearing. Sun Coast genuinely cares about

the health, safety, and well-being of their 5,500 employees, but they are also concerned about

worker compensation costs and potential long-term litigation from injuries and illness related to

employment.

Health and Safety Director Task

Sun Coast hired you last month to replace the previous health and safety director, who left to

pursue other opportunities. This is a critical position within the company because there are many

health and safety-related issues due to the nature of the work. The former health and safety

director was in the midst of analyzing these issues through the implementation of a research

project when she left the organization.

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Sun Coast Remediation Course Project

Introduction

Senior leadership at Sun Coast has identified several areas for concern that they believe

could be solved using business research methods. The previous director was tasked with

conducting research to help provide information to make decisions about these issues. Although

data were collected, the project was never completed. Senior leadership is interested in seeing the

project through to fruition. The following is the completion of that project and includes the

statement of the problems, literature review, research objectives, research questions and

hypotheses, research methodology, design, and methods, data analysis, findings, and

recommendations.

Statement of the Problems

Six business problems were identified:

Particulate Matter (PM)

There is a concern that job-site particle pollution is adversely impacting employee health.

Although respirators are required in certain environments, PM varies in size depending on the

project and job site. PM that is between 10 and 2.5 microns can float in the air for minutes to

hours (e.g., asbestos, mold spores, pollen, cement dust, fly ash), while PM that is less than 2.5

microns can float in the air for hours to weeks (e.g. bacteria, viruses, oil smoke, smog, soot). Due

to the smaller size of PM that is less than 2.5 microns, it is potentially more harmful than PM

that is between 10 and 2.5 since the conditions are more suitable for inhalation. PM that is less

than 2.5 is also able to be inhaled into the deeper regions of the lungs, potentially causing more

deleterious health effects. It would be helpful to understand if there is a relationship between PM

size and employee health. PM air quality data have been collected from 103 job sites, which is

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recorded in microns. Data are also available for average annual sick days per employee per job-

site.

Safety Training Effectiveness

Health and safety training is conducted for each new contract that is awarded to Sun

Coast. Data for training expenditures and lost-time hours were collected from 223 contracts. It

would be valuable to know if training has been successful in reducing lost-time hours and, if so,

how to predict lost-time hours from training expenditures.

Sound-Level Exposure

Sun Coast’s contracts generally involve work in noisy environments due to a variety of

heavy equipment being used for both remediation and the clients’ ongoing operations on the job

sites. Standard ear-plugs are adequate to protect employee hearing if the decibel levels are less

than 120 decibels (dB). For environments with noise levels exceeding 120 dB, more advanced

and expensive hearing protection is required, such as earmuffs. Historical data have been

collected from 1,503 contracts for several variables that are believed to contribute to excessive

dB levels. It would be important if these data could be used to predict the dB levels of work

environments before placing employees on-site for future contracts. This would help the safety

department plan for procurement of appropriate ear protection for employees.

New Employee Training

All new Sun Coast employees participate in general health and safety training. The

training program was revamped and implemented six months ago. Upon completion of the

training programs, the employees are tested on their knowledge. Test data are available for two

groups: Group A employees who participated in the prior training program and Group B

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employees who participated in the revised training program. It is necessary to know if the revised

training program is more effective than the prior training program.

Lead Exposure

Employees working on job sites to remediate lead must be monitored. Lead levels in

blood are measured as micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (μg/dL). A baseline blood test is

taken pre-exposure and postexposure at the conclusion of the remediation. Data are available for

49 employees who recently concluded a 2-year lead remediation project. It is necessary to

determine if blood lead levels have increased.

Return on Investment

Sun Coast offers four lines of service to their customers, including air monitoring, soil

remediation, water reclamation, and health and safety training. Sun Coast would like to know if

each line of service offers the same return on investment. Return on investment data are available

for air monitoring, soil remediation, water reclamation, and health and safety training projects. If

return on investment is not the same for all lines of service, it would be helpful to know where

differences exist.

Correlation Data

Simple Regression Data