The Perspective of Safety Engineers on Safety Climate

The aim of this study was to investigate safety climate and how it relates to the safety performance of employees from the perspective of safety engineers. Using Griffin and Neal's (2000) safety climate model as a theoretical basis, we hypothesized that the organizational safety climate is a higher‐order construct that relates to the safety compliance of employees and their safety participation via the mediating roles of safety knowledge and safety motivation. Hypotheses were tested among 236 safety engineers working in the wood and metal‐processing industries in Austria. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that safety climate is a higher‐order construct comprising manager values, safety communication, safety practices, safety training, and safety equipment. Moreover, from the perspective of safety engineers, the safety climate of the organizations was related to employee safety motivation, which in turn related to their safety compliance and safety participation. In contrast to our assumptions, the safety knowledge of employees was, in the view of safety engineers, neither related to employee safety compliance nor to their safety participation. Multigroup analysis revealed no differences between internally and externally employed safety engineers for these relations. Thus, although the safety climate model was generally confirmed from an engineer's perspective, engineers rated motivational aspects of safety climate is more important compared to knowledge aspects.     

Investigating interactions among vital variables affecting situation awareness based on Fuzzy DEMATEL method

In many accident reports, failure in situation awareness is mentioned as one of the immediate causes of those accidents. Accordingly, the identification of variables affecting situation awareness and their interactions are key factors in preventing accidents. This study aims to identify interactions among the most important individual, situational, and organizational variables affecting situation awareness in industrial workplaces. Using Fuzzy Delphi and Fuzzy DEMATEL methods, this study was conducted based on the data collected from experts’ judgments. The results show that organizational variables and some individual variables are the critical factors affecting situation awareness, and their effect is directly or indirectly created by situational and individual variables. The results of the study can be used to design proper guidelines for industry managers and employers to improve safety performance in the workplace; in addition, the findings of the study can be employed to design future studies to model the predictive power of variables affecting situation awareness in different work environments.     

高层住户防抛物、坠物安全意识演化模型

为深入研究高层住户防抛物、坠物安全意识的演化机理,减少此类安全事故的发生,运用基于多主体的建模与仿真（ABMS）方法,建立高层住户防抛物、坠物安全意识演化模型;利用Netlogo仿真软件,对模型中各主体属性进行分析,研究不同属性对安全意识的影响程度以及在各属性综合作用下安全意识的变化趋势。研究结果表明：各主体属性对高层住户防抛物、坠物安全意识的影响程度存在差异。知识文化水平对住户个体安全意识程度影响最大;舆论压力水平存在双向影响;住户群体凝聚力水平较群体接触频率影响力更大;增强法律惩罚力度可以同时提高群体行为安全性水平以及物业安全管理水平。     

Knowledge and information awareness for initiating transactive memory system processes of computer-supported collaborating ad hoc groups

This paper presents an innovative approach for initiating processes of a transactive memory system in newly formed groups of experts collaborating computer-supported in a complex problem-solving task. Our empirical study compared 15 experimental and 15 control groups, each consisting of triads. In the experimental condition, the triads were provided with a tool for fostering knowledge and information awareness, that is, being informed about the knowledge and the underlying information of the collaboration partners in form of digital concept maps. In the control condition, the groups had no access to this tool. Results confirmed the potential of the tool to initiate processes of a transactive memory system: shared agreement of the knowledge of the other group members’ knowledge proved to influence group performance positively. In addition, previous findings of the tool’s potential to establish knowledge and information awareness and to augment group performance could be replicated. However, the postulated mediating effect of processes of a transactive memory system concerning the impact of knowledge and information awareness on group performance did not reach statistical significance. Aspects for future studies and implications of these findings regarding their practical implementation, for example, in teams of organizations, are discussed.     

Multifactor interactions and the air traffic controller: the interaction of situation awareness and workload in association with automation

Air traffic controllers must maintain a consistently high level of human performance in order to maintain flight safety and efficiency. In current control environments, performance-influencing factors such as workload, fatigue and situation awareness can co-occur and interact to affect performance. However, multifactor influences and the association with performance are under-researched. This study utilised a high-fidelity, human-in-the-loop, en route air traffic control simulation to investigate the relationship between workload, situation awareness and controller performance. The current study aimed to replicate Edwards et al.’s (in: Proceedings of the 4th AHFE international conference, 21–25th July, San Francisco, USA, 2012) previous finding that factors known to be associated with controller performance do co-vary and can interact, which is associated with a compound influence on performance. In addition, the current study aimed to extend Edwards et al.’s (2012) study by engaging retired controllers as participants and comparing multifactor relationships across four levels of automation. Results suggest that workload and situation awareness may interact to produce a compound (as opposed to cumulative) impact on controller performance. In addition, the effect of the interaction on performance may be dependent on the context and level of automation. Findings have implications for human–automation teaming in air traffic control, and the potential prediction of performance-influencing situations, supporting controller performance in the operational environment.     

Investigation of guessability of industrial safety signs: Effects of prospective-user factors and cognitive sign features

This study investigated the effects of prospective-user factors and five cognitive sign features on guessability of safety signs. Sixty Hong Kong Chinese subjects guessed the meanings and rated the sign features of 63 Mainland China safety signs. The prospective-user factors of working or site visit experience at laboratory or construction site, awareness of safety signs in daily life, injury experience due to ignorance of safety signs, and driving experience had significant effects on guessing performance. However, gender, Mainland China visit experience, and family member working at laboratory or construction site had no influence on guessing performance. The guessability scores varied with the five cognitive sign features viz. familiarity, concreteness, simplicity, meaningfulness, and semantic closeness. The guessability of safety signs was better when the signs were familiar, concrete, simple and meaningful and when the signs were associated with the underlying concepts. Overall, the findings showed that prospective-user factors and cognitive sign features are involved in effective communication of safety sign messages.

Relevance to industry

Posting of safety signs is a possible safety precaution measure that can be taken to attempt to reduce accidents and injuries in industrial undertakings. The findings of this study provide useful information for designing more user-friendly safety signs which could act as a reference for interface designers to develop more user-friendly safety signs in the future.     

Personality and inter-subject differences in performance and physiological cost during whole-body vibration

When subjects are exposed to whole-body vibration, extra effort is required to maintain pre-vibration standards of performance. Therefore the willingness of subjects to expend this effort might influence both performance and physiological cost. Willingness may be related to a personality variable-score on the locus of control scale. This hypothesis was tested in 12 subjects who performed a simulated driving task during 10 min of vertical (±Gz) whole-body vibration at energy levels of 021,0-28 and 0-35 r.m.s.g using a sinusoidal and a random waveform. Accuracy at a foot-controlled, compensatory tracking task, reaction time, oxygen uptake and heart rate were measured. Subjects with an ‘internal’ locus of control had less tracking error(p<0.001)and higher heart rates (p<0.05) than did subjects with an ‘external’ locus of control. Furthermore, both variables were significantly correlated with the locus of control scores (r= +0.73 and —0.66) respectively. These findings suggest that the inter-subject differences found in investigations using human subjects may be explained in part by personality differences related to locus of control.     

Investigating the validity of subjective workload rating (NASA TLX) and subjective situation awareness rating (SART) for cognitively complex human–machine work

Subjective workload and situation awareness measures, such as the NASA task load index (TLX) and the situational awareness rating technique (SART), are frequently used in human–system evaluation. However, the interpretation of these ratings is debated. In this study, empirical evidence for the measures' theoretical assumptions was investigated by comparing operators' ratings collected immediately after performing a scenario and ratings collected after operators' acquisition through a video review of the scenario, knowledge of actual system states. Eighteen licensed control room operators participated in the simulator study, running 12 relatively challenging scenarios. It was found that the interpretation of TLX items involving introspection remained stable after operators acquired factual scenario knowledge, while the interpretation of items involving the perception of external events, such as situation awareness and performance, depended on the operators' scenario knowledge. The result shows that operators’ ratings could discriminate between mental effort, performance, frustration, and situation awareness. No clear evidence for the SART index as a measure of situation awareness was found. Instead, a subjective situation awareness measure developed for this study was distinct from workload and related to operator performance, showing that this type of measure warrants future investigation of its validity. The study findings help in developing measurement procedures and interpreting subjective measures. Finally, the study reveals that informing operators about the scenario can provide useful subjective ratings of situation awareness and performance. Future research should include procedures for how to inform participants adequately and efficiently in subjective assessments.     

The impact of computer-based procedures on team performance,communication, and situation awareness

In nuclear power plants, operating procedures are adopted to aid the operators in performing their tasks. With the evolution of computer hardware and software, the analog human-machine systems of the main control room in the nuclear power plant have been replaced with digital systems. Moreover, automated operations now outnumber manual operations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of computer-based procedures on the team performance, communication, and situation awareness of operators in the main control room. To achieve the purpose, a within-subjects experiment was designed and then a survey was conducted. The results showed that the teams had better objective performance and higher situation awareness when using computer-based procedures. In addition, the teams also had lower human error and lower communication rates when using computer-based procedures. This study proposes that computer-based procedures are advantageous to the operation of the systems of the main control rooms in nuclear power plants.Relevance to industryComputerized procedures system is one of the specific features for advanced nuclear power plant. This study explores and analyzes the team performance, communication, and situation awareness difference between paper-based, electronic, and computer-based procedures in detail. It may provide practical information for how to apply computer-based procedures to perform the tasks in the main control room of the advanced nuclear power plant.     

Driver behaviour with adaptive cruise control

This paper reports on the evaluation of adaptive cruise control (ACC) from a psychological perspective. It was anticipated that ACC would have an effect upon the psychology of driving, i.e. make the driver feel like they have less control, reduce the level of trust in the vehicle, make drivers less situationally aware, but workload might be reduced and driving might be less stressful. Drivers were asked to drive in a driving simulator under manual and ACC conditions. Analysis of variance techniques were used to determine the effects of workload (i.e. amount of traffic) and feedback (i.e. degree of information from the ACC system) on the psychological variables measured (i.e. locus of control, trust, workload, stress, mental models and situation awareness). The results showed that: locus of control and trust were unaffected by ACC, whereas situation awareness, workload and stress were reduced by ACC. Ways of improving situation awareness could include cues to help the driver predict vehicle trajectory and identify conflicts.     

Safety management of complex technology

One of the key success factors behind the human species is the ability to think, plan and pursue goals. Apart from wisdom and tacit knowledge, experience and awareness of the physical laws governing the universe are themselves the ingredients of success in a particular undertaking. However, unfamiliar circumstances pose a challenge to the extrapolation of the past experience to the future expectations. This is particularly true within the context of new discoveries or novel application of emerging and complex/adaptive technologies. Amongst many facets of performance pertaining to a product, process or undertaking, safety is generally a more demanding aspect to forecast, manage and deliver. The statutory framework poses further constraints on performance where the potential for harm to people or the environment arises from a product or system. The modernisation programme for the West Coast Main Line (WCML) railways in the UK involves adoption and implementation of a few advanced technologies to assist with better train protection and network utilisation. The extent, scope and inter-related nature of these advanced technologies within WCML modernisation programme necessitate a systematic framework commensurate with the scale of the problem and undertakings. To this end, an advanced risk forecasting model was devised at Railtrack to support the safety assessment and assurance of the programme within its three key evolutionary phases.     

Implicit social cognition and safety culture

Most models define safety culture as basic assumptions, attitudes, or values concerning organizational safety issues. When measuring safety cultures, many researchers have had their main focus on explicit safety‐critical attitudes and generally relied on specific survey instruments. It is questionable, however, whether self‐report measures can capture all aspects of organizational safety culture. Instead of getting direct answers, implicit measures rely on activating automatic attitudes derived from long‐term memory and measure the time it takes an individual to react to attitude‐evoking stimuli. This article deals with the relationship between implicit safety‐critical attitudes and safety culture. The first study involved the measurement of explicit and implicit safety‐critical attitudes from 376 participants working in various industries. The Implicit Association Test (IAT)—a latency‐based measurement approach—was applied to assess implicit safety‐critical attitudes. Explicit safety attitudes were measured by questionnaire. Implicit and explicit attitudes are both related to organizational safety performance indicators, such as data concerning accidents and near misses. The second study involved both types of safety‐critical attitudes that were used for predicting safety culture indicators on an individual level. An example of this is risk awareness. The first study's results show that explicit and implicit safety‐critical attitudes represent various aspects of an organizational safety culture and can be related to safety performance indicators on an organizational level. The second study's results indicate that implicitly measured attitudes have been better at predicting safety culture indicators on an individual level compared to explicit attitude. Recommendations for future research in the field of safety culture assessment are made. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Driver behaviour with adaptive cruise control

This paper reports on the evaluation of adaptive cruise control (ACC) from a psychological perspective. It was anticipated that ACC would have an effect upon the psychology of driving, i.e. make the driver feel like they have less control, reduce the level of trust in the vehicle, make drivers less situationally aware, but workload might be reduced and driving might be less stressful. Drivers were asked to drive in a driving simulator under manual and ACC conditions. Analysis of variance techniques were used to determine the effects of workload (i.e. amount of traffic) and feedback (i.e. degree of information from the ACC system) on the psychological variables measured (i.e. locus of control, trust, workload, stress, mental models and situation awareness). The results showed that: locus of control and trust were unaffected by ACC, whereas situation awareness, workload and stress were reduced by ACC. Ways of improving situation awareness could include cues to help the driver predict vehicle trajectory and identify conflicts.     

The role of IT human capability in the knowledge transfer process in IT outsourcing context

Our research attempted to identify the behavioral process of knowledge transfer by examining the effects of IT human capability, human character, trust, and cooperative learning on it in an IT outsourcing situation. By analysing data collected from vendor and client matched-pair samples of 87 IT outsourcing projects, we found that both the client's and the vendor's character influenced trust, trust affects on cooperative learning, and the cooperative learning influence on knowledge transfer. More importantly, it we found that the client's IT human capability had a direct impact on cooperative learning and knowledge transfer. This indicated that client's IT human capability was a crucial factor in effective knowledge transfer during IT outsourcing. It also implied that client firms should identify and retain some IT personnel who can apply vendors’ competencies in IT practice and respond effectively to any technological challenges.     

Crossing safety barriers: influence of children's morphological and functional variables

Thirty-three children between 3 and 6 years of age were asked to climb four different types of safety barriers. Morphological and functional variables of the children, which were expected to influence climbing or passing through skills, were collected. The influence of those variables on children’s success rate and time to cross was tested. No barrier offered a total restraining efficacy. The horizontal bars barrier was crossed by 97% of the children. In the group of children that succeeded in crossing the four barriers, mean time to cross the most difficult barrier was 15 s. Age was the best predictor for success in crossing most barriers but morphology and strength were important predictors of time to cross. The influence of anthropometric variables in time to cross was dependent upon the characteristics of the barrier. A good design of safety barriers should consider children’s age, morphology and strength.     

Design of human–machine interactions in light of domain-dependence of human-centered automation

This paper discusses that human-centered automation for traffic safety can vary depending on transportation mode. Quality of human operators and time-criticality are factors characterizing the domain-dependence. The questions asked in this paper are: (1) Does the statement that, “The human must be in command,” have to hold at all times and on every occasion, and in every transportation mode? and (2) What the automation may do when it detected the human’s inappropriate behavior or performance while monitoring the human? Is it allowed only to give some warnings? Or, is it allowed to act autonomously to resolve the detected problem? This paper also argues that human-centered automation must be multi-layered, by taking into account not only enhancement of situation awareness but also trading of authority between humans and machines.     

Skills,rules and knowledge in aircraft maintenance: errors in context

Automatic or skill-based behaviour is generally considered to be less prone to error than behaviour directed by conscious control. However, researchers who have applied Rasmussen's skill-rule-knowledge human error framework to accidents and incidents have sometimes found that skill-based errors appear in significant numbers. It is proposed that this is largely a reflection of the opportunities for error which workplaces present and does not indicate that skill-based behaviour is intrinsically unreliable. In the current study, 99 errors reported by 72 aircraft mechanics were examined in the light of a task analysis based on observations of the work of 25 aircraft mechanics. The task analysis identified the opportunities for error presented at various stages of maintenance work packages and by the job as a whole. Once the frequency of each error type was normalized in terms of the opportunities for error, it became apparent that skill-based performance is more reliable than rule-based performance, which is in turn more reliable than knowledge-based performance. The results reinforce the belief that industrial safety interventions designed to reduce errors would best be directed at those aspects of jobs that involve rule- and knowledge-based performance.     

Perceived absorptive capacity of individual users in performance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) usage: The case for Korean firms

We examined the effect of absorptive capacity of users on their use of ERP in a Korean context. The three components considered were understanding, assimilating, and applying ERP knowledge. We found that the capacities of users to assimilate and apply the knowledge had both direct and indirect effects on its value. The users’ ability to understand ERP knowledge was found to influence its performance by their assimilating and applying the knowledge. We also found that organizational support moderated the relationship between their absorptive capacity and performance.     

Human factors and aviation safety: what the industry has,what the industry needs

The use of statistical analyses to assert safety levels has persuasively been established within the aviation industry. Likewise, variations in regional statistics have led to generalizations about safety levels in different contexts. Caution is proposed when qualitatively linking statistics and aviation's resilience to hazards. Further caution is proposed when extending generalizations across contexts. Statistical analyses—the favoured diagnostic tool of aviation—show sequences of cause/effect relationships reflecting agreed categorizations prevalent in safety breakdowns. They do not, however, reveal the processes underlying such relationships. It is contended that the answers to the safety questions in contemporary aviation will not be found through the numbers, but through the understanding of the processes underpinning the numbers. These processes and their supporting beliefs are influenced by contextual constraints and cultural factors, which in turn influence individual and organizational performance. It is further contended that the contribution of human factors is fundamental in achieving this understanding. This paper, therefore (1) argues in favour of a macro view of aviation safety, (2) suggests the need to revise a long-standing safety paradigm that appears to have ceased to be effective, and (3) discusses the basic premises upon which a revised safety paradigm should build.     

Changing drivers' minds: the evaluation of an advanced driver coaching system

This paper reports on the study of an advanced driver coaching system. The study distinguishes between different types of post-licensure programmes in order to explore a system based on a model of identifying and responding to hazards, called 'information, position, speed, gear and acceleration' (IPSGA). Previous literature has been sceptical about the benefits of advanced driver education; thus, the current study was designed to control for the effects of coaching drivers in the 'IPSGA' system (the treatment group) against the effects of being accompanied (control group 1), as well as the mere effects of time (control group 2). Measures were taken before the driver coaching began (as a baseline measure) and again after 8 weeks (to see if any changes had occurred). These measures included driver knowledge via a post-drive interview, observations of driving skill and driver attitude using a locus of control scale. The results suggest that advanced driver coaching using the IPSGA system had a beneficial effect on all of these measures. Drivers in the coaching condition improved their situation awareness, driving skills and reduced attributions of external locus of control. The study lends support to the case for one-to-one individualized driver coaching using a systematic model of driving.