June 1, 2026
11:00AM - 12:00PM

Process Safety Track

Advancing Operational Discipline: A Site-Level Journey in Conduct of Operations Excellence

Rod Leger

This presentation shares key learnings from an ongoing multi-year journey to strengthen Operational Discipline (OD) and Conduct of Operations (COO) at Ascend Performance Materials’ Chocolate Bayou site. The session will outline how the site defined, implemented, and continually refined its OD Assessment Framework to drive consistent, reliable, and safe operations across nine production units and a centralized maintenance organization. Attendees will gain insight into the tools, metrics, and governance practices used to embed OD principles into daily manufacturing activities.

The discussion will explore the practical distinctions between Conduct of Operations and Operational Discipline, the importance of leadership behaviors in shaping operational culture, and the use of key performance indicators to measure maturity and sustain progress.

Through case examples, the presentation will highlight both successes and setbacks encountered along the way—including incidents traced to OD weaknesses—and how these lessons informed targeted improvements. It will also cover the site’s evolving approach to data utilization, assessment rigor, and the continuous enhancement of its OD maturity model.

Ultimately, this session aims to provide an honest, experience-based perspective on what it takes to institutionalize Operational Discipline at the plant level—illustrating that excellence in COO and OD is not a project with an endpoint, but a continuous improvement journey driven by data, feedback, and unwavering commitment to safe and reliable operation.