Psychological Aspects of Risk Management and Technology – Overview

1. Psychological Aspects of Risk Management and Technology – Overview

2. Definition of safety:Occupational safety vs. process safety • Occupational safety • Is concerned with protecting people from hazards at their work place • Is conceptualized as a secondary task • Process safety • Is concerned with the safety of production processes • Is conceptualized as part of the primary work task

3. Definitions of safety culture and safety management • Safety culture: “that assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance” (INSAG, 1991) • Safety management: “the safety management system comprises those arrangements made by the organization for the management of safety in order to promote a strong safety culture and achieve good safety performance”(INSAG, 1999)

4. Elements of safety culture according to INSAG (1991)

5. Example of safety management system: The Dupont model

6. Organizational factors related to safety: Description of safety culture or safety management? (e.g. Reason, 1993) • management commitment to safety • safety training and motivation • safety committees and safety rules • record keeping on accidents • adequate inspection and communication • adequate operation and maintenance procedures • well-designed and functioning technical equipment • good house-keeping

7. Organisational culture "a pattern of basic assumptions - invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems“ (Schein, 1985)

8. A core element of culture: Defining the role of the human Safety factor? Risk factor? Safety measures mirror and confirm assumptions about the role humans should play

9. The uncertain relationship between autonomy and safety (Grote, Turner & Wall, 2003; Grote, 2009) High Safety Low High Low Autonomy High uncertainty Low uncertainty

10. Socio-technical model of safety culture (Grote & Künzler, 2000) Aim: Linking safety culture to overall organizational culture as well as to characteristics of the material organization beyond directly safety-related activities

11. Indicators in the sociotechnical model of safety culture

12. Method for assessing safety management: Safety Management Audit in the Process Industries(Swiss Re)

13. Basis for assessing safety culture:Comparing judgements by employees in different departments/ hierarchical positions (1) Assessing safety measures Formal Safety: e.g. There are sufficient written procedures, checklists etc. to ensure process safety. Enacted Safety: e.g. Proposals developed during safety meetings are swiftly implemented. (2) Assessing system design strategies e.g. Plant personnel can intervene in automated processes to ensure quality and safety of production vs. Plant personnel may not intervene in automated processes in order not to jeopardize safety

14. Examples survey

15. Example survey

16. "Safe" organizational change? • Organizations may need evolutionary, but also radical change in order to respond to internal and external demands • Radical organizational change can harm process and work safety. • structural level: Reduced resources for safety; unsafe work processes etc. • individual level: "objective" indicators like absenteeism; "subjective" indicators like anxiety • Which effects are caused by organizational change depends also on the way the change process is carried out.

17. Validated instrument for diagnosing safety culture (Grote & Künzler, 2000; Grote, 2008) • Survey in combination with interviews and plant observations • Three parts in survey: • Assessment of formal and enacted safety measures - shown to vary with operational changes ( safety management) • Assessment of safety and design strategies - shown to be more stable ( safety culture) • Assessment of change management practices (procedures for change, esteem for employees, transparence, vision)

18. Safe management of uncertainty ? In a plant of a large pertrochemical company, polyethylen is produced from ethylen dissolved in isobutane and a nunber of other chemicals including hexane. The reaction takes place under high temperature and pressure in loop reactors. An operator in the control room of the plant monitors two such reactors by means of a number of screens and process recorders on a control panel. Looking at one of the process recorders, another shift operator explains to the observer that when two of the curves on the line recorder do not run in parallel anymore, extra caution is needed, and when the cruves cross the process has to be stopped immediately. Those two curves concern the pressure in the reactor and the energy consumption in a group of pumps. The crossing of the curves indicates lumping of the polyethylen in the reactor, which increases the pressure in the reactor and the energy consumption by the pumps because more energy is needed to pump the finished product out of the reactor. Next to the process recorder, a piece of paper is taped to the control panel, stating critical values for these two parameters, distinguishing between values when the shift supervisor has to be informed and when the process has to be stopped. Stopping the process implies the immediate emptying and rinsing with water of the reactor and an interruption of production for several hours. An hour later during the observation, the curves do indeed begin to move towards each other. The panel operator notices the change immediately and changes the set values for hexane after having checked a number of other process parameters and also having verified the set values for hexane in the standard operating procedures. This action causes the process control system to reduce the influx of hexane which reduces the pressure in the reactor due to a smaller volume of reacting substances. At the same time, the operator has informed the shift supervisor who leaves a meeting to join him at the control panel where he remains during the course of the process upset. The first actions taken by the operator have not been able to reverse the trend in the two paramters. Only after further redcution of hexane influx and faster emptying of the reactor the values turn back to normal. In the fifteen minutes that this course of events takes, the curves displayed on the process recorder have briefly crossed. Trusting his own competence in handling the process upset and supported by the shift supervisor, the operator decided against stopping the process completely. Instead of causing a significant interruption of production, the operator succeeds in normalizing the process in the course of half an hour, with also the results from quality control being positive again a little while later. His shift colleague comments: „I definitely would have stopped the process completely“, but admiration for the other`s competence can be sensed.

19. Management of uncertainty(Grote, 2004, 2009)

20. Balancing dependence and autonomy through loose coupling • "The concept of loose coupling allows theorists to posit that any system, in any organizational location, can act on both a technical level, which is closed to outside forces (coupling produces stability), and an institutional level, which is open to outside forces (looseness produces flexibility)"(Orton & Weick, 1990) • Mechanisms for loose coupling • Motivation through task orientation • Higher order autonomy • Flexible shifts between organization forms • Integration/coordination through culture

21. Loose coupling:Coordination and integration through culture • "Before you can decentralize, you first have to centralize so that people are socialized to use similar decision premises and assumptions so that when they operate their own units, those decentralized operations are equivalent and coordinated. This is precisely what culture does. It creates a homogeneous set of assumptions and decision premises which, when they are invoked on a local and decentralized basis, preserve coordina-tion and centralization. Most important, when centralization occurs via decision premises and assumptions, compliance occurs without surveillance. This is in sharp contrast to centrali-zation by rules and regulations or centralization by standardi-zation and hierarchy, both of which require high surveillance. Furthermore, neither rules nor standardization are well equipped to deal with emergencies for which there is no precedent." (Weick, 1987)

22. Reflecting (on) culture: Perceptions of safety and design strategies (Grote & Künzler, 2000; Grote, 2008)

23. Assessing safety culture within the framework of uncertainty management • Appropriate form of uncertainty manage-ment depends on contingencies in the organization, especially the amount and kind of uncertainties. • Different role of safety culture in the minimizing uncertainty and coping with uncertainty approach: Additional vs. dominant coordina-tion mechanism • To support coping with uncertainties, a safety culture is needed that acts as centralizing force in an otherwise decentralized organi-zation.