Demystifying safety-related intelligence in safety management: Some key questions answered from a theoretical perspective

Abstract

In this “intelligence” age, the phrase “intelligence” is a buzzword in many domains. This article focuses on Safety-Related Intelligence (SRI), which differs from safety-related information because it is considered as the actionable safety recommendations deriving from safety-related information. SRI can directly affect safety management (SM). Meanwhile, the ultimate aim behind safety-related information research and practice is producing and applying SRI to drive and guide SM. Therefore, in this information era, SRI is one of the key factors for SM or, in other words, good quality SRI is the life blood of the modern SM. Apparently, SRI has the potential to be the most important SM innovation of the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, since SRI is an emerging concept in the SM field that was formally proposed in 2018, some basic issues regarding SRI still remain to be discussed and explained. The key objective of this paper is to systematically answer four basic questions about SRI from a theoretical perspective, which are: “What is it?” “What are the relationships between it and other concepts (namely, safety-related information and safety analysis)?” “What it does” and “How does the organization use it?” Obviously, this study can not only help researchers and practitioners understand the concept of SRI properly, but also lay a theoretical foundation for the future study and practice of SRI.