safety culture

阿傻

In order to operate a nuclear installation safely, it is not enough to have a technically safe system. For safe operation it is also equally important that the operating personnel should have a proper attitude to safety and the management, as well as the workers must be comitted to safety and must realize that safety has the highest priority above all. This is the concept of safety culture.
The International Atomic Energy Agency gives the following official definition:
"Safety culture is that assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear power plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance. "
After this hard-to-understand definition let us see what it means in easier terms! In all types of activities, for organizations and for individuals at all levels attention to safety involves many elements:
•        Individuals must be aware of the importance of safety.
•        Knowledge and competence of the personnel must be adequate. This should be conferred by training and instruction of personnel and by their self-education.
•        The management is required to demostrate commitment to the high priority of safety and individuals should adopt the common goal of safety.
•        Personnel must be motivated to keep to safety regulations, which the management can achieve by the setting of objectives and systems of rewards and sanctions.
•        It is important that the management supervise the work of individuals, including audits and review practices, with readiness to respond to individuals' questioning attitudes.
•        Responsibilites must be clearly declaired, through formal assignment and description of duties; the management must make sure that the personnel understand them.
Safety culture has two general components. The first is the necessary framework within an organization and is the responsibility of the management hierarchy. The second is the attitude of staff at all levels in responding to and benefiting from the framework.
Accordingly, the concept of safety culture implies what attitude the individuals working in a nuclear installation and the whole organization have to nuclear safety. Safety culture is also an amalgamation of values, standards. morals and norms of acceptable behaviour. These are aimed at maintaining a self-disciplined approach to the enhancement of safety beyond legislative and regulatory requirements. Therefore, safety culture has to be inherent in the thoughts and actions of all the individuals at every level in an organization. The leadership provided by top managetnent is crucial.
Safety culture applies to conventional and personal safety as well as nuclear safety. All safety considerations are affected by common points of beliefs, attitudes, behaviour, and cultural differences, closely linked to a shared system of values and standards.
An organization with a good safety culture relies on close interdependence between technical safety and organizational processes. In practice, a high level of safety culture means the systematic organization and implementation of activities aimed at creating high quality technical, human and organizational systems. Whatever the level of technical sophistication, a mature safety culture can offer a defence in depth against the risk of accidents.
If one wishes to summarize the relationship between the behaviour of individuals and safety culture, one can say: the response of all those who strive for excellence in matters affecting nuclear safety should be characterized by:
A QUESTIONING ATTITUDE
plus
A RIGOROUS AND PRUDENT APPROACH
plus
COMMUNICATION
The result will be a major contribution to:
SAFETY
Now let us take a look at each of the above three concepts. Before an individual begins any safety related task, his or her questioning attitude raises issues such as those listed in the following:
•        Do I understand the task?
•        What are my responsibilities?
•        How do they relate to safety?
•        Do I have the necessary knowledge to proceed?
•        What are the responsibilities of others?
•        Are there any unusual circumstances?
•        Do I need any assistance?
•        What can go wrong?
•        What could be the consequences of failure or error?
•        What should be done to prevent failures?
•        What do I do if a fault occurs?
Individuals must adopt a rigorous and prudent approach. This involves, among others: understanding the work procedures; complying with the procedures; being alert for the unexpected; stopping and thinking if a problem arises; seeking help if necessary; devoting attention to orderliness, timeliness and housekeeping; proceeding with deliberate care.
Everyone mustrecognize that a communicative approach is essential to safety. This involves: obtaining useful information from others; transmitting information to others; reporting on and documenting results of work, both routine and unusual; suggesting new safety initiatives.
A questioning attitude, a rigorous and prudent approach, and necessary communication are all aspects of an effective Safety Culture in individuals. The product contributes to a high level of safety and generates a personal pride in dealing with important tasks in a professional manner.
The efforts made to enhance safety culture can benefit plant engineering, construction and performance through improved organization, analyses, anticipation and work processes, such as better planning of outages. Enhanced safety culture can also prevent accidental over-exposure of persons involved in industrial or medical radiography. A strong safety culture can lead to more effective conduct of work and a sense of accountability among managers and employees, who should be given the opportunity to expand skills by training. The resources expended would thus result in tangible improvements in working practices and skills, which should encourage further improvement of safety culture.
In promoting an improved safety culture, some countries have favoured an approach emphasizing the use of behavioural sciences while others have emphasized the quality management system approach to enhancing safety performance. There is consensus that account should be taken of both national and organizational culture and that an appropriate balance of behavioural sciences and quality management systems approaches should be pursued.
Many features of a strong safety culture have long been recognized as 'good pactices' in numerous areas of safety activities, for example in the nuclear industry and aviation. In recent years there has been increased emphasis on a systematic approach to the development of an improved safety culture, and there is increasing awareness of the contribution that human behavioural sciences can make to developing good safety practices. Just as nuclear facility performance relies on the technical advice of specialists, some aspects of safety and organizational performance can be improved by seeking advice from experts in the behavioural sciences.
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