Risk significance and safety significance

Existing measures of the risk significance of elements of risk models (such as the Fussell–Vesely, or ‘F–V’, importance of basic events) are based on the properties of cut sets containing the element. A measure of safety significance (prevention worth, or ) is proposed, based on the properties of path sets containing the element. A high value of F–V means that cut sets containing the element contribute significantly to top event frequency; a high value of means that path sets containing the element contribute significantly to top event prevention. The properties of as a measure of basic event significance are illustrated first with a simple block diagram example, and then with an example based on nuclear power plant risk models. can also be understood as a property of a set of success scenarios, and as such, can be applied more broadly than just as a measure of element significance.     

风险管理过程

组织实施风险管理一般遵循11条风险管理原则,通过风险管理框架而展开。特别强调的是风险管理框架不是描述一个管理系统,风险管理框架只是协助组织将风险管理整合到整个管理系统中。因此,组织应该根据自己的需求来确定框架的组成部分(见图1)。一、风险管理过程的组成风险管理过程是管理方针、程序和惯例,对沟通、协商、确定环境(状况)、以及识别、分析、评价、处理、监测和评审风险活动的系统应用。风险管理过程是组织管理的有机组成部分,嵌入在组织文化和实践当中,贯穿于组织的经营过程。     

The social aspects of safety management: Trust and safety climate

This study tested the contribution of trust between leaders and subordinates to safety. It is suggested that leaders who create a relationship of trust with their subordinates are more likely to create a safe working environment, and to achieve higher and stronger safety-climate perceptions among their subordinates. Hence, trust should be negatively related to injuries and positively related to safety climate. Questionnaires distributed among 2524 soldiers in three army brigades tested for trust and safety-climate variables and were then crossed with injury rate according to medical records at the platoon level of analysis (N = 105). Trust was found to be negatively related to injuries and positively related both to level and strength of safety climate. Furthermore, safety-climate level was found to mediate the relationship between trust and injury rates. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Risk perception, safety goals and regulatory decision-making

Deciding on ‘how safe is safe enough?’ includes value judgements with implications of an ethical and political nature. As regulators are accountable to governments, parliaments and the general public, regulatory decision-making should be characterized by transparency with respect to how such value judgements are reflected in risk assessments and regulatory decisions. Some approaches in this respect are discussed in the paper, based on more than fifteen years of experience in nuclear regulatory decision-making. Issues discussed include: (1) risk profiles and safety goals associated with severe reactor accidents—individual health risks, societal risks and risk of losing investments; (2) risk profile-based licensing of the Swedish SFR final disposal facility for low and intermediate level radioactive waste.     

从实施食品质量安全市场准入制度透视标准的应用

一、概述食品质量安全市场准入制度是指为保证食品的质量安全,具备规定条件的生产者才允许进行生产经营活动、具备规定条件的食品才允许生产销售的监管制度;它是针对有固定的生产加工场所、相应的生产加工设备和工艺流程而制作、销售食品的企业实施的准入制度。该项制度自2002年7月由国家质量监督检验检疫总局启动以来,从战略规划到具体应用都做出了详尽的部署,在保证食品质量、规范食品企业管理行为等方面起到了重要的作用,取得了令人瞩目的成绩。2002年7月,国家质检总局对大米、小麦粉、食用植物油、酱油、食醋5类食品实施了食品质量安全…     

Risk analysis and safety policy developments in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, external safety policy has been developed and implemented since the early eighties on the basis of a risk-based approach involving quantitative criteria for the tolerability of risk. Good experiences have been gained with the risk policy that applies to some 4000 establishments in the Netherlands where hazardous substances are present. On the basis of these experiences, legislation is now being prepared to give the risk tolerability criteria a full legal basis. This is aimed, in particular, to balance between risk control measures at the source through the licensing system, and spatial planning instruments to protect, e.g. residential areas against major hazards. The revision of the Seveso directive (96/82/EC) leads to the implementation of an integrated form of safety reporting, evaluation and inspection. Practical tools were developed for this implementation, e.g. for facilitating the selection of establishments and for assessing risks from major hazard establishments to surface water. In the past few years, the application of risk-based safety policy has been extended to other fields than establishments, e.g. for transport of hazardous chemicals and external safety of airports.     

Principles of engineering safety: Risk and uncertainty reduction

This article provides a systematised account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. We list 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering, dividing them into four major categories: Inherently safe design, Safety reserves, Safe fail and Procedural safeguards. It emerges from this systematisation that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty.     

露天爆破事故分析与安全管理研究

露天爆破具有应用范围广、炸药用量多、安全风险高和受环境影响大的特点.为避免爆破作业发生安全事故或引发民事纠纷,在进行露天爆破作业安全事故统计并具体分析典型案例的基础上,基于《爆破安全规程》规定,对露天爆破有害效应给出了计算方法,同时提出了预防露天爆破事故的安全技术措施和安全管理措施,以期提高爆破作业人员的技术水平和安全...     

Database management systems for process safety

Several elements of the process safety management regulation (PSM) require tracking and documentation of actions; process hazard analyses, management of change, process safety information, operating procedures, training, contractor safety programs, pre-startup safety reviews, incident investigations, emergency planning, and compliance audits. These elements can result in hundreds of actions annually that require actions. This tracking and documentation commonly is a failing identified in compliance audits, and is difficult to manage through action lists, spreadsheets, or other tools that are comfortably manipulated by plant personnel. This paper discusses the recent implementation of a database management system at a chemical plant and chronicles the improvements accomplished through the introduction of a customized system. The system as implemented modeled the normal plant workflows, and provided simple, recognizable user interfaces for ease of use.     

欧盟食品包装材料安全管理模式

欧盟建立了统一的食品包装材料法规体系,其目的是既要保护消费者的健康,又要消除不必要的贸易技术壁垒.欧盟食品包装材料的管理包括框架法规、特殊法规和单独法规3种.框架法规规定了对食品包装材料管理的一般原则,特殊法规规定了框架法规中列举的每一类物质的特殊要求,单独法规是针对单独的某一种物质所做的特殊规定.     

Risk based methodology for safety improvements in ports

With the introduction of the Formal Safety Assessment in the International Maritime Organisation decision making process regarding new regulations, and the recent tanker disasters resulting in extensive oil pollution, the public and political pressure to improve safety in ports and the shipping industry has increased. Considering that some kind of Safety Report (case) regulations related to marine operations have not been established, and that the ports and shipping industry are at the onset of safety regimes utilised in other industries, a step wise methodology for safety improvements in ports has been developed. In the first step, the hazard identification and the qualitative risk assessment is carried out to establish hazard barriers which are or should be in place to prevent hazards from being released; the controls for managing these hazards are then developed and integrated into the Safety Management System (SMS). In the second and optional step, the areas of high risk are investigated in detail and the approach for risk quantification discussed. The use of the quantitative risk assessment results is illustrated in two examples.     

Incorporating management and organisational factors into probabilistic safety assessment

This paper is concerned with how management and organisational influences can be factored into risk assessments. A case study from the rail transportation sector illustrates how organisational factors can act as high level influences which are manifest as operational errors giving rise to major accidents. A model is proposed which describes the interrelationships between management influences, immediate causes and operational errors. This model can be used for organisational auditing, monitoring and system design. A strategy is described for collecting data from an existing organisation to develop a specific form of the generic model. The final issue addressed is the use of the model to quantify the effects of organisational influences on risk arising from human error. A numerical case study is provided to illustrate the approach.     

Human and organizational biases affecting the management of safety

Management of safety is always based on underlying models or theories of organization, human behavior and system safety. The aim of the article is to review and describe a set of potential biases in these models and theories. We will outline human and organizational biases that have an effect on the management of safety in four thematic areas: beliefs about human behavior, beliefs about organizations, beliefs about information and safety models. At worst, biases in these areas can lead to an approach where people are treated as isolated and independent actors who make (bad) decisions in a social vacuum and who pose a threat to safety. Such an approach aims at building barriers and constraints to human behavior and neglects the measures aiming at providing prerequisites and organizational conditions for people to work effectively. This reductionist view of safety management can also lead to too drastic a strong separation of so-called human factors from technical issues, undermining the holistic view of system safety. Human behavior needs to be understood in the context of people attempting (together) to make sense of themselves and their environment, and act based on perpetually incomplete information while relying on social conventions, affordances provided by the environment and the available cognitive heuristics. In addition, a move toward a positive view of the human contribution to safety is needed. Systemic safety management requires an increased understanding of various normal organizational phenomena - in this paper discussed from the point of view of biases - coupled with a systemic safety culture that encourages and endorses a holistic view of the workings and challenges of the socio-technical system in question.     

Quantifying the influence of safety management on the reliability of safety barriers

A methodology is described that enables to use safety management audit assessments and safety culture questionnaire results for estimating the reductions in the reliability of safety barriers in major hazard plants. The critical issue is the establishment of weight factors in combination with the anchoring of “good” safety management. A method is proposed to derive weight factors from statistical accident analysis in combination with a statistical analysis of safety management assessments at a representative sample of major hazard industries. A preliminary set of weight factors is presented with some examples of resulting reductions in reliability—this demonstration confirms that the set of weight factors needs further development.     

Safety management practices and safety behaviour: Assessing the mediating role of safety knowledge and motivation

Safety management practices not only improve working conditions but also positively influence employees’ attitudes and behaviours with regard to safety, thereby reducing accidents in workplace. This study measured employees’ perceptions on six safety management practices and self-reported safety knowledge, safety motivation, safety compliance and safety participation by conducting a survey using questionnaire among 1566 employees belonging to eight major accident hazard process industrial units in Kerala, a state in southern part of India. The reliability and unidimesionality of all the scales were found acceptable. Path analysis using AMOS-4 software showed that some of the safety management practices have direct and indirect relations with the safety performance components, namely, safety compliance and safety participation. Safety knowledge and safety motivation were found to be the key mediators in explaining these relationships. Safety training was identified as the most important safety management practice that predicts safety knowledge, safety motivation, safety compliance and safety participation. These findings provide valuable guidance for researchers and practitioners for identifying the mechanisms by which they can improve safety of workplace.     

Safety-barrier diagrams as a safety management tool

Safety-barrier diagrams and “bow-tie” diagrams have become popular methods in risk analysis and safety management. This paper describes the syntax and principles for constructing consistent and valid safety-barrier diagrams. The latter's relation to other methods such as fault trees and Bayesian Networks is discussed. Important advantages of safety-barrier diagrams as compared to other graphical risk-analysis methods are, firstly, the relative simplicity that supports communication with non-expert stakeholders and, secondly, the focus on deliberately inserted safety systems that supports the management and maintenance of these systems. Safety-barrier diagrams provide a useful framework for an electronic data structure that integrates information from risk analysis with operational safety management.     

Road safety issues for bus transport management

Because of the low percentage of crashes involving buses and the assumption that public transport improves road safety by reducing vehicular traffic, public interest in bus safety is not as great as that in the safety of other types of vehicles. It is possible that less attention is paid to the significance of crashes involving buses because the safety level of bus systems is considered to be adequate.     

The integration of the standards systems of quality management,environmental management and occupational health and safety management

This paper considers the systems of Quality, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety management. It prospectively analyses the advantages and disadvantages of integrating these systems, as opposed to the systems having independent management in a manufacturing company. Quality Management standards' (ISO 9000) evolution towards Total Quality Management is the starting point. Recent revisions embodied some of the requirements portrayed in the Environmental Management standards (ISO 14000), as well as issues pertaining to Occupational Health and Safety (OHSAS 18001). This tendency towards inclusion of material from different standards systems is expected to be even more evident in the forthcoming revision of the ISO 9000 standards. There is still a notorious absence of an integrated document; ISO has not yet adopted the OHSAS 18001 standard and there are hardships inherent in such an integrative approach. Commonalities between the three systems are emphasized. Foreseen advantages for companies pertain to economies of scale in the certification processes and a joint approach to the provision of quality, environmental responsibility and workforce protection. As a conclusion, the need to pursue standards integration is emphasized. The paper also exposes some predictive gains to be encountered in further integrating the standards system with the inclusion of ergonomics certification.     

The effects of error management climate and safety communication on safety: A multi-level study

Work in the construction industry is considered inherently dangerous, despite the technological improvements regarding the safety of work conditions and equipment. To address the urgent need to identify organizational predictors of safety performance and outcomes among construction workers, the present study examined multi-level effects of two important indicators of safety climate, namely contractor error management climate and worker safety communication, on safety behavior, injury, and pain among union construction workers. Data were collected from 235 union construction workers employed by 15 contractors in Midwest and Northwest regions of the United States. Results revealed significant main effects for safety communication and error management climate on safety behaviors and pain, but not on injuries. Our findings suggest that positive safety communication and error management climate are important contributors to improving workplace safety. Specific implications of these results for organizational safety research and practice are discussed.