In the early 1990s, an Intel Corp. construction project in Ireland received a safety flag, a top local award for an outstanding jobsite safety record. But project leader Art Stout, now the chipmaker’s manager of corporate capital development, wouldn’t allow the flag to be flown, claiming the record "wasn’t good enough."

Intel implemented and honed a tougher corporate-wide construction safety program that has made it an industry role model today. Recordable injuries and illnesses fell from a rate of 5.95 per 100 full-time workers in 1994 to 0.68 just five years later. But the global manufacturer, which spends between $3 billion and $7.5 billion a year on capital investment, still is not satisfied. "We used to think injuries were a natural course of construction," says Stout. "Now we want to get our injury rate beyond zero."