Human Factors in the Chemical and Process Industries

Making it Work in Practice

Janette Edmonds, The Keil The Keil Centre

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780128038789
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Quality Control in Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Human Factors in the Chemical and Process Industries: Making it Work in Practice is a comprehensive overview of human factors within this sector, focusing on the practical application. It has been written by acknowledged industry experts from the Keil Centre, which is a leading practice of chartered ergonomics and human factors specialists, chartered safety specialists, registered occupational psychologists, and registered clinical psychologists

The book was inspired by the international human factors training course run by the Keil Centre with the IChemE (http://www.icheme.org/human-factors), which has reached four continents across the world. The book is written for those who want a comprehensive overview of the subject, focusing on the practical application of human factors. It has been written for safety professionals, engineers and operational disciplines within industry, and those aspiring to these disciplines, who either deal with human factors issues or any aspect of the 'human element' in their core role.

The book explains what 'human factors' is about and how human factors issues are best managed from a practical perspective. It will help readers develop a greater understanding of the area and how to establish more effective solutions for human factors related issues.

• Provides comprehensive coverage of the most relevant human factors within this sector, with succinct overviews of each topic
• Uses case studies and practical examples to illustrate topics and explains the material in a fully accessible, easy to understand style
• Written by a single team of eleven industry practitioners, drawing on the combined expertise of different human factors specialisms which are rarely comprehensively combined in a single resource

Section IV

Understanding and improving organizational performance

Outline

Chapter 18 Safety culture and behavior

Chapter 19 Managing organizational change

Chapter 20 Staffing the operation

Chapter 21 Safety critical communication

Chapter 22 Managing fatigue

Chapter 23 Managing performance under pressure

Chapter 18

Safety culture and behavior

E. Novatsis

Abstract

This chapter discusses the concept of safety culture, the shared ways of thinking and behaving in relation to safety in an organization. Three key aspects of safety culture are addressed: (1) definition, (2) assessment, and (3) development and reinforcement. In defining safety culture, different definitions and models are discussed, with an emphasis on establishing a clear and practical definition in an organization. The considerations involved with conducting a safety culture assessment are then presented, along with different assessment methods and their respective advantages and disadvantages. The effort and persistence involved in developing safety culture is then addressed. A number of practical examples are given to illustrate how safety culture and associated behaviors can be effectively developed and sustained. Finally, success factors and challenges for the management of safety culture programs are outlined.

Keywords

Safety culture; organizational culture; safety climate; safety culture maturity®; management commitment

List of Abbreviations

ACSNI Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations

EHS Environment Health and Safety

HRO High Reliability Organization

HSE Health and Safety Executive

INSAG International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group

PPE Personal Protective Equipment

RAF Royal Air Force

This chapter discusses the importance of safety culture, its link to safety performance, and how it can be defined, assessed, and developed. Since the inception of the term “safety culture” after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, researchers and practitioners have used different methods to define the concept. Narrative descriptions, organizational culture models, safety climate scales, cultural maturity models, and behavior standards are discussed as key ways to describe this concept. Emphasis is placed on practical descriptions that help employees at different levels to understand their day-to-day role in keeping the organization focused on safety. Importantly though, safety culture cannot be defined and viewed in isolation from the wider organizational culture. Organizations need to provide the right structures, processes, and practices to enable people to stay focused on safety.

Once an organization has a clear definition of the safety culture it is working towards, a range of methods can be used to assess strengths and gaps to determine development priorities. Measurement options include perception surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation, behavioral gap analysis, and incident investigation reviews. These methods each have advantages and disadvantages; therefore, organizations are encouraged to use a structured multi-method approach to gather a deep and comprehensive assessment of the safety culture.

After this understanding is gained, organizations can determine the most appropriate ways of developing the gaps identified and sustaining improvements. Examples of practical and engaging activities are provided for developing specific behaviors, safety culture themes, and for organization-wide safety culture reinforcement. Finally, tips from wide and varied experiences of helping companies develop safety culture are provided, including what works well and common challenges that need to be mitigated.

Accordingly, this chapter is divided into three sections: defining safety culture, assessing safety culture, and developing and sustaining safety culture.

Defining Safety Culture

The term “safety culture” was introduced into the industrial safety lexicon in 1986 by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) in its summary report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident (1992). Deficiencies in design, safety analysis, learning from previous events, and operating practices that contributed to the explosion at the nuclear power plant reflected a poor safety culture. The importance of safety culture to both operating and regulatory regimes, and throughout all phases of the asset life cycle was also emphasized in the investigation report.

Subsequently, investigations into other major accident events in various industries have explained some of their findings using the term “safety culture,” including Piper Alpha (Cullen, 1990), the train crash at Clapham Junction (Hidden, 1989), Texas City, (Chemical Safety Board, 2007) and the loss of the RAF Nimrod XV230 (Haddon-Cave, 2009) to name a few. With this trend came an interest from academics and practitioners to describe what is meant by “safety culture.” This section outlines some of the main ways that safety culture has been defined and comments on their utility for organizations.

Narrative Descriptions

Narrative descriptions are one way that organizations, including regulators, have described safety culture. For example, the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI, 1993) following the Chernobyl accident event described safety culture as:

the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine commitment to, and the style and proficiency of an organisation’s health and safety management. Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by the efficacy of preventive measures (ACSNI, 1993, p. 23).

Simplified narrative definitions such as “the way we think and behave in relation to safety” might be useful in the branding of safety culture programs. For organizations that wish to develop their own narrative description, Guldenmund (2000) summarizes the narrative definitions of safety culture proposed by researchers from 1980 to 1997....

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Author Profiles
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgment
• Section I: Introduction to human factors within the chemical and process industries
• Section II: Managing human failure
• Section III: Human factors within design and engineering
• Section IV: Understanding and improving organizational performance
• Index