Objective: What is the influence of general management trends and safety research on managing safety? Method: A literature study which is limited to original English and Dutch books, documents, and ...articles in relevant scientific journals, for the period 1988–2010. Results and conclusions: Safety science does not yet have a unifying theory, which betrays its young age as a scientific discipline. In the period concerned, well-known theories, models and metaphors are established or re-issued, including the High Reliability Theory, the Man-Made Disasters and the corresponding Disaster Incubation Theory, and the Normal Accident Theory. The Swiss cheese metaphor takes its final form, the bowtie metaphor and the Drift into Danger model are published. All these theories, models and metaphors emphasize organisational aspects of major accidents in high-tech-high-hazard sectors. General management trends highlight the importance of external stakeholders, which are only reflected in the Drift into Danger metaphor. These developments must be considered in the context of a dynamic influence of external factors, like a decrease in government influence coinciding with strong market and technology developments, which can conflict with safety requirements for high-tech-high-hazard companies. Organisational/safety culture and risk/safety management systems take off during this period, both in terms of academic research and consultancy activities for companies. Whether these concepts will have a lasting influence on safety levels in companies is yet to be seen, given the unclear relationship with major accident processes. Research findings show that many companies suffer from sloppy management, having only a limited insight into possible disaster scenarios.
When a train passes a red aspect, this is called a Signal Passed at Danger event or SPAD. Sometimes it is easy to identify the SPAD cause but in other cases it is unclear why the incident occurred, ...especially if the system operated as usual and the train driver was trained and experienced just like his or her colleagues. In previous research, train driver deceleration behaviour has been shown to be influenced by frequent exposure in the previous 14 days to less restrictive and visually similar signal aspects in the same location. Previous exposure can contribute to SPAD causation unless the initial insufficient deceleration is corrected in time. Six years of SPAD data and red aspect approaches in the Netherlands was used to test whether previous exposure to yellow:number aspects corresponds with a statistically significant increase in SPAD incidents if there is a small window for correction available to drivers. The permitted track speed and signal distance influence the size of this window. The results provide evidence for previous exposure as a cause for SPADs and details to identify locations with increased SPAD probability. Changes in infrastructure and timetable design or adding safety measures for these locations can prevent future SPADs.
•Train driver deceleration behaviour is influenced by the signal aspect that was present on previous days.•The window for correction influences whether initial insufficient deceleration leads to a SPAD.•The psychological concept of schemas was used to identify scenarios for train driver error.•Six years of SPAD incident data and red aspect approach data was analysed.•Changes in infrastructure and timetable design can prevent future SPADs.
•General management schools influenced the safety domain and safety management.•Process safety developed as an independent domain.•Safety knowledge can fade, or can take decennia to become ...accepted.•Research on weak signals has little relation with disaster scenarios.
What influence has research conducted by general management schools and safety research had upon the causes of accidents and disasters in relation to the managing of safety between 1970 and 1979?
The study was confined to original articles and documents, written in English or Dutch from the period under consideration. For the Netherlands, the professional journal De Veiligheid (Safety) was consulted.
Dominant management approaches started with (1) classical management starting from the 19th century incorporating as a main component scientific management from the early 20th century. The interwar period saw the rise of (2) behavioural management which was based on behaviourism, this was followed by (3) quantitative management from the Second World War onwards. After the war it was (4) modern management that became important. A company was seen as an open system, interacting with an external environment with external stakeholders. These management schools of thought were not exclusive, but existed side by side in the period under consideration.
Early in the 20th century, it was the U.S. ‘Safety First’ movement that marked the starting point of this knowledge development in the sphere of safety managing, with cost reduction and production efficiency as the key drivers. Psychological models and metaphors were used to explain accidents resulting from ‘unsafe acts’. Safety was managed by training and targeting reckless workers, all in line with scientific management. Supported by behavioural management, this approach remained dominant for many years until long after World War II.
Influenced by quantitative management, potential and actual disasters occurring after the war led to two approaches; loss prevention (up-scaling in the process industry) and reliability engineering (inherently dangerous processes in the aerospace and nuclear sectors). The distinction between process safety and occupational safety became clear after the war when the two evolved as relatively independent domains.
In occupational safety in the 1970s human error was thought to be symptomatic of mismanagement. The term ‘safety management’ was introduced to scientific safety literature alongside concepts such as loosely and tightly coupled processes, organizational culture, disaster incubation and the notion of mechanisms blinding organizations to portents of disaster scenarios. Loss prevention remained technically oriented. Until 1979 there was no clear link with safety management. Reliability engineering that was based on systems theory did have such a connection with the MORT technique that served as a management audit. The Netherlands mainly followed Anglo-Saxon developments. In the late 1970s, following international safety symposia in The Hague and Delft, independent research finally began in the Netherlands.
The future of safety science Swuste, Paul; Groeneweg, Jop; van Gulijk, Coen ...
Safety science,
05/2020, Volume:
125
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Ever since safety started to be investigated in a consistent manner, around 150 years ago, there has been a tremendous improvement, both in our understanding of accident processes, and in reduction ...of harm and damage caused by these occupational and major accidents. Major improvements in safety theories, models and metaphors were made after World War II, with the late 1970s till the late 1990s as the 'golden years'. But still these major accidents occur and they will keep prompting future scientific developments in safety, as they have done in the past. Reducing the frequency of major accidents remains challenging. Improving design and automation, as starting point for safety has its limits due to the complexity of processes and the inability to foresee all safety related conflicts. The modern emphasis to assure the capacity to handle unforeseen events, such as resilience promises to deliver, will become even more important in the future. Inherent safe design on the other hand make a sensible approach when designing production processes for emerging and future technologies, like nano- and biotechnology. Also, it will remain difficult for small and medium sized enterprises to adhere to complicated laws and regulations. In addition, an increased participation of stakeholder groups makes future safety decision-making even more challenging than it already is today. Yet we foresee that there may be grounds for change in which safety rules, laws and regulations are set aside, the bureaucratic approach towards safety is stopped and the focus is on dynamic accident processes detection. Today, methods are developed to automatically assess time-dependant advancement of accident scenarios and barrier degradation. This direction will contribute substantially to a future higher level of safety in different industrial sectors and might alleviate the emphasis on bureaucracy. We end with developments in two countries where safety and safety science is emerging.
•1980s and 1990s are a very productive years regarding safety theories, models and metaphors.•All theories, models and metaphors emphasize organisational aspects of major accidents.•The context is ...dynamic, a retreating government and a strong market and technology influence.•Safety science does not yet have a unifying theory or model, reflecting its young age as a science.•Many companies suffer from sloppy management, with a limited insight into possible disaster scenario’s.
What is the influence of general management trends and safety research on managing safety?
A literature study which is limited to original English and Dutch books, documents, and articles in relevant scientific journals, for the period 1988–2010.
Safety science does not yet have a unifying theory, which betrays its young age as a scientific discipline. In the period concerned, well-known theories, models and metaphors are established or re-issued, including the High Reliability Theory, the Man-Made Disasters and the corresponding Disaster Incubation Theory, and the Normal Accident Theory. The Swiss cheese metaphor takes its final form, the bowtie metaphor and the Drift into Danger model are published. All these theories, models and metaphors emphasize organisational aspects of major accidents in high-tech-high-hazard sectors. General management trends highlight the importance of external stakeholders, which are only reflected in the Drift into Danger metaphor. These developments must be considered in the context of a dynamic influence of external factors, like a decrease in government influence coinciding with strong market and technology developments, which can conflict with safety requirements for high-tech-high-hazard companies.
Organisational/safety culture and risk/safety management systems take off during this period, both in terms of academic research and consultancy activities for companies. Whether these concepts will have a lasting influence on safety levels in companies is yet to be seen, given the unclear relationship with major accident processes. Research findings show that many companies suffer from sloppy management, having only a limited insight into possible disaster scenarios.
•No new theories are published on accident processes of occupational accidents.•Accident models, metaphors explain occupational accidents within a socio-technical system.•Quality of safety management ...systems research is poor.•Organisational learning did not enter the occupational safety domain yet.•Safety culture and climate have no clear relation with accident processes.
What is the influence of general management trends and research into causes of accidents on safety management?
The literature study is limited to English and Dutch books, documents and articles in the scientific, professional, and technical literature from the period 1988–2010.
Quite some developments occurred in the occupational safety domain. During the period concerned three models are developed, the Dutch Tripod Model, the Swedish Occupational Risk Unit Model (QARU), and the Dutch Occupational Risk Model (QRM), a barrier based model founded on the bowtie metaphor. These models address occupational accidents from different perspectives, and surprisingly similar factors. While terminology differs, these factors are called basic risk factors, situational, or management factors.
Self-regulation of companies has been a strong stimulus for research on safety management systems and audits. Traditionally research in management related topics has not been part of safety research, and thus it has to be developed. While the quality of this type of research is rather low, a general structure of safety management systems is related to the Rhineland management concept. Such evidence is found in new management models such as the EFQM/INK and, to a lesser extent, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While organisational learning, its quality and effectiveness on occupational safety is not researched in this period, research interests are focussing on other organisational aspects like safety culture and climate, including a renewed interest in human behaviour.
Many incidents have occurred because organisations have failed to learn from lessons of the past. This means that there is room for improvement in the way organisations analyse incidents, generate ...measures to remedy identified weaknesses and prevent reoccurrence: the learning from incidents process. To improve that process, it is necessary to gain insight into the steps of this process and to identify factors that hinder learning (bottlenecks). This paper presents a model that enables organisations to analyse the steps in a learning from incidents process and to identify the bottlenecks. The study describes how this model is used in a survey and in 3 exploratory case studies in The Netherlands. The results show that there is limited use of learning potential, especially in the evaluation stage. To improve learning, an approach that considers all steps is necessary.
•Certain operational process are related to the occurrence of incidents.•An instrument was developed for mapping and quantification these process.•Construct validity and the dimensional structure of ...the instrument were established.•Confirmatory factor analysis presented acceptable fit across multiple datasets.
Organisations spend a considerable amount of time and effort on diagnosing and analysing risks within their organisation. In the area of occupational and process safety, a myriad of employee survey instruments is available. Many studies show that operational processes play an important role in an organisations overall safety. Yet, so far safety surveys mainly focus on safety measures or operational safety processes. A flexible instrument was developed with which a wide variety of constructs, from different disciplines, can be measured in a consistent and practical way. The resulting survey distinguishes itself from existing safety surveys by extending the scope with the operational processes which are also referred to as the ‘Core Business’.
This study reports on the development of a catalogue of constructs which were derived from scientific literature and practice. Each of these constructs has been developed with a view towards measurability in an employee survey. The reliability and validity for fifteen of these constructs was assessed. Five separate projects have been conducted within a range of organisations operating as high risk industries.
Construct validity and the dimensional structure of the instrument have been established through exploratory factor analysis and confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis. Diverse aspects derived from motivational and ergonomic approaches to safety proved to be distinguishable in this analysis.
The described instrument allows the mapping and quantification of various aspects of the operational process that are, based on existing knowledge, related to the occurrence of incidents.
Enabling persons with intellectual or multiple disabilities to carry out personal care tasks (such as washing and dressing) independent of guidance from parents or staff members and without prolonged ...interruptions is often difficult, particularly with persons whose disabilities also include visual impairments. Attempts were recently made to curb the problem of dependency in personal care tasks with the use of assistive technology, which ensured a combination of verbal prompting and preferred stimuli that were automatically delivered on positive performance. The goal of the study presented here was to help three new participants with multiple disabilities acquire independent dressing through an upgraded version of the technology. This technology provided prompts only for the failure to respond and included auditory, visual, and vibratory stimuli as reinforcing events or prompts. The data, which largely support and extend those that were previously reported in this area, appear encouraging with regard to the possibility of using technological solutions to promote daily self-help skills. (Contains 1 figure.)
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