Elements Of Safety Management System Research Articles

Research on Construction of Safety Management System in State-owned Enterprises

The establishment of safety management system is of great significance to improve safety management of state-owned enterprises. In order to provide some help for state-owned enterprises to establish a safety management system, the shortcomings of state-owned enterprises in safety management are summarized and a general behavior paradigm of establishment of a safety management system from the enterprise level is put forward based on literature research. Besides, the key elements of safety management system are discussed by fuzzy Borda number analytical method based on the grille, and the results show that when setting up the key elements of the safety management system, enterprises should pay more attention to objectives and policies, risk control, emergency management, institutions and responsibilities, laws, regulations and standards, occupational health, performance evaluation, interested parties, check and correct, management review, education and training, on-site management, accident management, leadership and commitment, system support and continuous improvement.

Elements of Safety Management System in the Construction Industry and Measuring Safety Performance – A Brief

Construction industry is considered to be one of the most hazardous industries in the world. The reason could be attributed to its hazardous nature as it is an accident-prone industry. Thus, a need for better understanding of safety management system is essential for improving safety performance in this sector. This paper discusses briefly the elements of safety management by presenting different systems (such as Oregon OSHA Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and OTAR Overseas Territories Aviation Circle) and elaborating their elements. It also discusses two types of measuring safety performance the first is the lagging indicators and the second is the leading indicator. In addition, a field study was conducted to explore contractors’ perception on safety management. A questionnaire was distributed to construction firms. 200 responses were collected and analyzed. All of the results showed positive answers which indicate that safety in performance in Egypt is slightly above average as all means were close to average.

THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE AS PART OF THE SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF SELECTED CIVIL AVIATION ORGANISATIONS

As air traffic is continously growing and the number of potential hazards for safety is also rising, improvement of management systems is required to ensure an adequate level of safety. The management of change constitutes an important part of the safety management system (SMS) defined in Annex 19 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. It is one of twelve elements of SMS found in the ‘Safety assurance’ component. The management of change put in place in an aviation organisation demonstrates the considerable development of an SMS. This process is essential for managing safety in an efficient way. The article reports on the state of implementation of the management of change in selected civil aviation organisations and also points out the difficulties related with carrying it out in everyday life. The paper focuses on managing changes of certified aerodromes and air navigation service providers. In the conclusions, tools are proposed that enable the reader to improve the process.

Developing a method to improve safety management systems based on accident investigations: The SAfety FRactal ANalysis

The concept of a safety management system (SMS) to control the risks of operational activities has been introduced in high-risk industries already some decades ago. SMS requires accidents/incidents to be reported and analysed and measures to be taken to prevent future events. Additionally, national investigating bodies have been given the role of independently investigating serious events, with the same goal. The current practice in accident and incident investigation however, does not provide a systematic approach to analyse elements of SMS. As a direct consequence, the opportunity to use these investigations for introducing sustainable system changes is often missed.The paper describes the SAfety FRactal ANalysis (SAFRAN) method that is developed to guide investigators to explore the composing elements of an SMS in a natural and logic way, starting from the findings close to operations that explain the occurrence – being the elements accident investigators are first confronted with. The paper further informs on the application of the SAFRAN method to review a selected set of published railway accident investigations, all reporting on occurrences related to over-speeding, possibly resulting in a (lethal) derailment. The depth and focus of the performed investigations is assessed and compared with a reference mode of expected findings that would result from an analysis that is applying the SAFRAN logic. This demonstrates the need, in order to introduce sustainable changes, to focus accident analysis on an organisation’s capability of managing the variability that might put successful process performance at risk.

The Gap Between Tools and Best Practice: An Analysis of Safety Prequalification Surveys in the Construction Industry.

This study characterizes safety prequalification surveys currently in use in the construction industry to identify approaches that include leading indicators of worker safety performance. We collected prequalification surveys available in the public domain from internet searches, construction company websites, published literature, and construction industry partners. We utilized a conceptual framework, based on safety theory and best practices, to categorize survey questions. Fifty-two prequalification surveys were identified containing 112 unique questions. Most included questions related to lagging indicators (83 percent), safety management leadership (75 percent), and worker training (60 percent). Safety management system elements such as hazard prevention and control, program evaluation and improvement, and coordination and communication were notably absent in 90 percent of the surveys. There was little consistency in the surveys available concerning leading indicators of safety. Only a small number of surveys currently in use incorporate all the elements of best practices associated with robust safety management systems.

Perception of safety culture: Surveying the aviation divisions of Ministry of National Defense, Taiwan, Republic of China

The Aviation Divisions of the Ministry of National Defense (ADMND), Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC) have established internal independent safety audit systems across various divisions to improve aviation safety performance and maintain safety records. The safety audit systems include a pilot reporting system, operation risk management, operation information resource management, flight and base service reporting system, etc. that are similar to the key elements of Safety Management Systems (SMS). SMS shapes the local culture and is thus, a safe operational environment. As the safety culture is one of the critical deliverables of SMS implementation, this study examined the architecture of the relationships between components of organizational safety culture, including informed, reporting, just and learning/adaptive subcultures–all embedded within the ADMND in Taiwan. A total of 915 valid questionnaires, collected from crewmembers (pilots and ground support staff) of ADMND, were analyzed and formed the basis for structural equation modeling and subsequent analyses. The analytical results indicated that safety culture has been well-established within the ADMND which is fully in compliance with the fundamental implementation of SMS (AC 120-32C) issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of the Ministry of Transportation, Taiwan, ROC.

An Analytic Hierarchical Approach to Building Airline Safety Management Systems

The airline literature has attracted considerable attention of scholars and significant modelling and empirical reports have been contributed. However, despite being significantly agitated in the recent past in view of unprecedented airline failures, the Nigerian airline industry is least studied. The safety management system (SMS) meant to be a constant measuring tool has been downplayed in research concerning this country’s airline system. To correct this anomaly, this study takes a frontline empirical initiative to prioritize the safety management system components and elements which hitherto has been very challenging and currently being approached by intuition. In this paper, the collective wisdom of experts is integrated into a framework of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) wherein experienced professionals’ ideas are obtained through questionnaire administration and interviews. The AHP methodology is a classical, merit-driven and validated approach in decision making and applied in this instance to the Nigerian aviation industry. The results indicated an effective prioritization of SMS elements and further validate the efficacy of the AHP model developed originally by Thomas Saaty.

A Comparative Study on Safety and Security Management Systems in Industries

Problem statement: To understand and appreciate the safety and security management systems in industries with a view to find out critical areas requiring attention so as to enhance the effectiveness of safety management systems and security management systems in large, medium and small scale industries. Approach: The study was restricted to Large, Medium and Small scale industries located in Tamilnadu, Kerala, Pondycherry, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh states of India. The data have been randomly collected from 45 samples each from Large, Medium and Small scale industries. This study has taken into the account of 6 major elements namely management commitment, documentation, facilities, promotion, procedure and training and each major elements having 6 sub elements thus consisting of 36 sub elements of safety management systems and 36 sub elements of security management systems. The sub-elements are prepared such as to reflect the availability of the safety and security management system in industries. Results: Major accident hazard industries require more attention towards safety and security management systems. The safety management system has gained more prevalence than security management system in large scale industries than the medium and small scale industries. The safety management system has considerable prevalence than security management system in medium scale industries than the small scale industries. The safety and security management system have more or less the same prevalence in the small scale industries. Conclusion: All the industries should devise systems for the adoption and implementation of safety and security management system. Security failures can lead to safety failures and hence they must be given equal importance. The major accident hazard industries should adopt all the safety and security management elements. All the elements of safety and security management systems should be given equal importance for effective and safe functioning of the industries. The security management system is an upcoming field which needs to be sincerely implemented in the industries in the present scenario of global terrorism. The safety and security management system should go together in a coherent manner to reduce the societal risk.

Safety management systems under Seveso II: Implementation and assessment

Abstract The `Seveso II Directive' (96/82/EC) requires certain establishments holding hazardous substances to implement a Safety Management System (SMS). The first part of the paper discusses the origin of this requirement, the guidance drawn up to help companies fulfil it, and the results of preliminary testing of this guidance. One important element in implementing and inspecting SMS is the identification of SMS weaknesses, the safety culture that effects SMS and finally the evaluation of safety performance. The second part of this paper examines some principles underlying industrial practice in evaluating SMS. Audit-related activities, involving proactive performance indicators for monitoring compliance with standards, are used nowadays to identify weaknesses of the SMS. Preventive actions to control risks and policy updating within the company through strategic plans are found to be sensitive to the number and type of SMS elements taken into account as indicators. The value of quantifying performance using simple rating systems in audits may be limited to the single installation. The guidelines and evaluation methods could thus produce useful results only when safety aspects and system elements are identified and evaluated separately for each installation; the value of quantification is limited to the individual elements after considering their functional relation with the rest of the elements in the SMS environment and the local safety culture into which they are developed.

Safety Management Systems: Questioning Some Fundamentals

1.0 Abstract The Gullen Enquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster emphasised the importance of work practices as well as equipment hardware in ensuring safety offshore. In the complex offshore environment, the need to dovetail the various work practices and safety initiatives is paramount. The resulting integrated corpus is termed a Safety Management System (SMS). Many SMS concepts have been borrowed from the related discipline of Quality Management. Sometimes these concepts are used without thought as to what specific benefits they bring to safety. The authors believe that the industry is beginning to loose sight of utility when putting in place certain elements of SMS. Some work practices and initiatives are instigated because they are expected to be there rather than because of need. In three specific areas, BHP Petroleum has developed novel elements of their Safety Management System for North Sea Production operations in order to satisfy specific needs. The first element is Safety Auditing. BHP has developed a custom designed auditing system which focuses on the offshore installation rather than the overall Safety Management System. This auditing system takes as its point of departure the specific hazards that exist on the installation in question. The second element relates to safety responsibilities. In defining safety responsibilities, it is very easy to give individual members of the workforce too much direction. The result can be an overly proceduralised and rigid organisation. BHP are in the process of developing a system for delineating safety responsibilities in order to support training goals. This allows members of the workforce scope to apply good judgement in a goal setting way. The third element concerns the management of safety in contractors operations. Rather than requiring a contractor to import the Operators SMS, BHP has developed a mechanism for using and enhancing the Contractors existing Safety Management System. This paper provides a description of how these systems work.