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Safety Performance (safety + performance)
Selected AbstractsHuman survivability in motor vehicle firesFIRE AND MATERIALS, Issue 4 2008K. H. Digges Abstract Automobile fires are consistently among the largest causes of fire death in the United States (about 500 annually) and the U.S. motor vehicle industry and others have spent a significant amount of money in recent years studying this problem. The authors of this review have analyzed the auto industry reports, the scientific literature, and statistical data, and conclude that measures should be taken to improve survivability in automobile fires. The U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 302 (FMVSS 302) was introduced almost 40 years ago to measure the flammability of interior materials, but improvements in the crashworthiness of automobiles and their fuel tanks and the increased use of combustible materials have changed the motor vehicle fire scenario significantly. In particular, the primary threat has changed from ignition of a small quantity of combustible interior materials by a lit cigarette, in 1960, to ignition of a large quantity of combustible interior and exterior materials by an impact-induced fire, at present. The authors therefore suggest that FMVSS 302 is no longer relevant to automobile fire safety and recommend improved standards based on objective criteria for fire safety performance (fireworthiness) at the system/vehicle level as is routinely done for crashworthiness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Resource Availability, Commitment and Environmental Reliability & Safety: A Study of Petroleum RefineriesJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005Frederick Wolf This paper examines the effect of resource availability and resource commitment on several important regulatory measures related to environmental risk and safety performance in petrochemical manufacturing. The research is grounded in Normal Accident Theory, and it controls for the effect of interactive complexity and a coupling on environmental reliability. The study is based on a sample (n=70) of petroleum refineries located in the United States during the five-year period, 1993,97. A statistically significant (p=.01) relationship between resource availability and the incidence of accidental hazardous substance releases was observed. The study also identified a significant relationship between plant safety as measured by Total Case Incident Rates (TCIR) and resource availability. Surprisingly, no significant relationships were observed between accidental hazardous substance releases or safety related performance outcomes as measured by Total Case Incident Rates and resource commitment as capital spending related to health, environmental and safety in this sample of refineries. [source] Food safety performance in European union accession countries: Benchmarking the fresh produce import sector in HungaryAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2006Marian Garcia Martinez Countries that accede to the European Union face a complex and urgent task to adopt and implement the Acquis Communautaire on food safety. For the food industries in such countries, this implies that the European Union's standards of food production and processing, food quality and safety have to be met to ensure a high level of consumer protection and satisfaction. The authors assess the level of food safety performance in one accession country, Hungary, in one food sector (the fresh produce importing chain), and evaluate the capacity of the system to demonstrate quality assurance to the satisfaction of private customers and public regulators. The analysis of food safety performance has been undertaken through gap analysis using a novel application of a benchmarking methodology taking the United Kingdom fresh produce importing chain as the benchmark. The insights are relevant to other accession countries and to other candidate countries for European Union enlargement. [EconLit Classifications: Q130, Q180]. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 22: 69,89, 2006. [source] Simultaneous modelling of multiple traffic safety performance indicators by using a multivariate generalized linear mixed modelJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES A (STATISTICS IN SOCIETY), Issue 3 2004Trevor C. Bailey Summary., Traffic safety in the UK is one of the increasing number of areas where central government sets targets based on ,outcome-focused' performance indicators (PIs). Judgments about such PIs are often based solely on rankings of raw indicators and simple league tables dominate centrally published analyses. There is a considerable statistical literature examining health and education issues which has tended to use the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) to address variability in the data when drawing inferences about relative performance from headline PIs. This methodology could obviously be applied in contexts such as traffic safety. However, when such models are applied to the fairly crude data sets that are currently available, the interval estimates generated, e.g. in respect of rankings, are often too broad to allow much real differentiation between the traffic safety performance of the units that are being considered. Such results sit uncomfortably with the ethos of ,performance management' and raise the question of whether the inference from such data sets about relative performance can be improved in some way. Motivated by consideration of a set of nine road safety performance indicators measured on English local authorities in the year 2000, the paper considers methods to strengthen the weak inference that is obtained from GLMMs of individual indicators by simultaneous, multivariate modelling of a range of related indicators. The correlation structure between indicators is used to reduce the uncertainty that is associated with rankings of any one of the individual indicators. The results demonstrate that credible intervals can be substantially narrowed by the use of the multivariate GLMM approach and that multivariate modelling of multiple PIs may therefore have considerable potential for introducing more robust and realistic assessments of differential performance in some contexts. [source] A MULTILEVEL INTEGRATION OF PERSONALITY, CLIMATE, SELF-REGULATION, AND PERFORMANCEPERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2006CRAIG WALLACE The purpose of this multilevel study was to test whether regulatory focus mechanisms (promotion focus and prevention focus; Higgins, 1997, American Psychologist, 52, 1280,1300; Higgins, 2000, American Psychologist, 55, 1217,1230) can help explain how group safety climate and individual differences in Conscientiousness relate to individual productivity and safety performance. Results, based on a sample of 254 employees from 50 work groups, showed that safety climate and conscientiousness predicted promotion and prevention regulatory focus, which in turn mediated the relationships of safety climate and Conscientiousness with supervisor ratings of productivity and safety performance. Implications for theory and research on climate, motivation, and performance and avenues for future research are discussed. [source] Improving operating discipline through the successful implementation of a mandated behavior-based safety programPROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 3 2010Bruce K. Vaughen Abstract This article describes the improvement of a manufacturing site's safety performance that can be attributed, in part, to the successful implementation of a mandated behavior-based safety (BBS) program. As has been discussed in prior articles, improving operating discipline (improving the conduct of operations) will contribute to reducing process safety, health and environmental risks. The BBS program implementation, with its expectation that each employee complete and submit at least one safety observation a month, coincided with several other significant safety initiatives. These other initiatives required employee involvement from all levels of the organization, including implementing process safety management elements, implementing the site's "principles of operation," and performing daily job safety analyses. This article will describe how the site's BBS observation program has evolved over the last decade, how several human-related issues were overcome, and provides specific examples of some of the changes implemented as a result of the observations. In conclusion, this article shows how direct management involvement and support and increased personnel involvement has improved safety awareness, knowledge, and commitment to help reduce manufacturing risks. "You can observe a lot just by watching.",Yogi Berra © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2010 [source] The use of the Pareto shape parameter as a leading indicator of process safety performancePROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 3 2009Fred Henselwood Abstract Metrics addressing process safety incident performance typically focus on frequency and severity statistics. Often, these lagging metrics are not overly sensitive to actual performance, making trending and forecasting difficult. This article presents the results from a statistical study of a large incident dataset where changes in the Pareto shape parameter were observed as a function of time. This approach has been found to give far better insight into process safety performance than traditional incident metrics and readily relates back to concepts such as the "incident triangle" and "layers of protection." Through the application of this approach, trends within process safety incident performance have been observed earlier, and more accurate forecasting has allowed for the identification of anomalies. In turn, these critical observations have allowed for the better structuring and targeting of process safety programs. Although incident data are generally considered as a lagging indicator, this approach has clearly reduced the lag time associated with this type of data and has given valuable insight into the current status of process safety performance. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009 [source] Organizational factors that influence safety,PROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 2 2006Patrick Killimett For the past 20 years the author and his associates have worked with over 1600 organizations to improve safety performance. In the course of this work, we have discovered that organizations optimize their efforts when they provide and support strong roles at each of three levels: the front-line employee, supervisory, and senior manager levels. These three roles, when appropriately engaged, make up a cord of three strands that is not easily broken. Of these three areas, the leadership role has proved not only to have the greatest impact on safety improvement but also the most complex to understand and influence. One striking example of this is seen in the study of sites using the same improvement methodology. Even when compared by industry, site size, and systems, some organizations achieve steady improvement whereas others consistently struggle. More than any other factor, the quality of the organization's leadership,in particular its influence on the organizational culture,determined the level of success achieved. By organizational culture we mean the shared common values that drive organizational performance, more commonly defined as "the way we do things here." Culture applies to many areas of functioning, is generally unstated, in the background, and slow to change. Even though it is generally recognized that leadership is important to performance, the "how" of that leadership is often debated. What makes a leader effective at influencing and improving safety? What are the qualities of such a leader? What are the key tasks that a leader must perform to generate desired results? Although this paper focuses on these questions with respect to senior leaders, the principles discussed are applicable to all levels in the organization. © 2006 Behavior Science Technology, Inc. (BST), 2006 [source] Nurturing a strong process safety culturePROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 1 2006Shakeel H. Kadri Process safety management introduced a formal, structured, management systems approach to accident prevention that represented a "step change" improvement in identifying and reducing the potential for major process plant accidents. Although the process safety management elements have proven effective, the overall sustainability remains a challenge. This paper highlights the importance of a strong process safety culture that is needed to sustain a strong process safety performance. We use the Columbia Shuttle disaster incident as a backdrop to focus the attention on the significance of not having an optimal "Safety Culture." Examples have been included from our industry to further exemplify its broad applicability. The paper proposes an approach that will help organizations to self-assess the state of the process safety culture in their organizations, which can be an aid in their ongoing cultural improvement effort. Four important cultural themes are identified and described: (1) Create awareness and buy-in about process safety culture themes, (2) adapt process safety culture themes to your company experience, (3) use suggested indicators to identify specific areas of improvement, and (4) develop a strategic improvement plan to strengthen and sustain process safety culture. © 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2006 [source] Upgrading education and safety performance: SACHE at 17PROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 4 2002F. Owen Kubias No abstract is available for this article. [source] Self-assessment for improving safety performance in the nuclear industryQUALITY ASSURANCE JOURNAL, Issue 1 2003I.A. Beckmerhagen Abstract Due to the possibility of catastrophic accidents when operating a nuclear plant, ensuring the highest level of safety and continuously improving safety-related performance are imperative in the nuclear industry. One of the prerequisites for such assurance and improvement is a structured program for the assessment of safety performance, consisting of both internal and external evaluation of existing systems and achieved results. This paper discusses a comprehensive program for the self-assessment of safety performance enablers and safety performance outcomes. The main self-assessment concepts are presented, including the framework, objectives, and scope of a self-assessment, a set of main principles and prerequisites for conducting it, and the resulting benefits. An illustration of a self-assessment program currently under development in the International Atomic Energy Agency is also provided. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||