From the traditional concept of safety management to safety integrated with quality

This editorial reviews the evolution of the concepts of safety and quality that have been used in the traditional workplace. The traditional programs of safety are explored showing strengths and weaknesses. The concept of quality management is also viewed. Safety management and quality management principles, stages, and measurement are highlighted. The concepts of quality and safety guarantee are assessed. Total Quality Management concepts are reviewed and applied to safety quality. Total safety management principles are discussed. Finally, an analysis of the relationship between quality and safety from data collected from a company in Spain is presented.     

The association between subcontractor safety management programs and worker perceived safety climate in commercial construction projects

Problem: Safety management programs (SMPs) are designed to mitigate risk of workplace injuries and create a safe working climate. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the relationship between contractors’ SMPs and workers’ perceived safety climate and safety behaviors among small and medium-sized construction subcontractors. Methods: Subcontractor SMP scores on 18 organizational and project-level safety items were coded from subcontractors’ written safety programs and interviews. Workers completed surveys to report perceptions of their contractor’s safety climate and the safety behaviors of coworkers, crews, and themselves. The associations between SMP scores and safety climate and behavior scales were examined using Spearman correlation and hierarchical linear regression models (HLM). Results: Among 78 subcontractors working on large commercial construction projects, we found striking differences in SMP scores between small, medium, and large subcontractors (p < 0.001), related to a number of specific safety management practices. We observed only weak relationships between SMP scales and safety climate scores reported by 746 workers of these subcontractors (β = 0.09, p = 0.04 by HLM). We saw no differences in worker reported safety climate and safety behaviors by contractor size. Discussion: SMP only weakly predicted safety climate scales of subcontractors, yet there were large differences in the quality and content of SMPs by size of employers. Summary: Future work should determine the best way to measure safety performance of construction companies and determine the factors that can lead to improved safety performance of construction firms. Practical applications: Our simple assessment of common elements of safety management programs used document review and interviews with knowledgeable representatives. These methods identified specific safety management practices that differed between large and small employers. In order to improve construction safety, it is important to understand how best to measure safety performance in construction companies to gain knowledge for creating safer work environments.     

Perceived organizational support and perceived safety climate from the perspective of safety professionals: Testing reciprocal causality using a cross-lagged panel design

Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine the reciprocal relationship between safety professionals perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived safety climate. Safety professionals are most effective when they perceive support from management and employees and they also attribute most of their success to support from the organization. Their work directly improves safety climate, and organizations with a high safety climate show a higher value for the safety professional. The causal direction of this relationship is, however, unclear. Method: Using a sample of 162 safety professionals, we conducted a cross-lagged panel study over one year to examine whether safety professionals’ POS improves their perceived safety climate and/or whether safety climate also increases POS over time. Data were collected at two points and, after testing for measurement invariance, a cross-lagged SEM was conducted to analyze the reciprocal relationship. Results: Our findings show that safety professionals’ POS was positively related to perceived safety climate over time. Perceived safety climate, however, did not contribute to safety professionals’ POS. Conclusions: This study significantly adds to the discussion about the factors influencing safety professionals’ successful inclusion in organizations, enabling them to perform their work and, thus, improve occupational safety. Practical Applications: Since safety climate increases in organizations in which safety professionals feel supported, this study points out the kind of support that contributes to improved organizational safety. Support for safety professionals may come in classical forms such as approval, pay, job enrichment, and information on or influence over organizational policies.     

Safety climate,safety management practice and safety performance in offshore environments

Safety climate surveys were conducted on 13 offshore oil and gas installations in separate years (N=682 and 806, respectively), with nine installations common to both years. In addition, data on safety management practices were collected by questionnaire from senior management on eight installations in each year. The associations between management practices and climate scores with official accident statistics and self-reported accident involvement were tested via a series of hypotheses. Associations were found between certain safety climate scales and official accident statistics and also the proportion of respondents reporting an accident in the previous 12 months. Proficiency in some safety management practices was associated with lower official accident rates and fewer respondents reporting accidents.     

Unintended consequences of management strategies for improving labor productivity in construction industry

Introduction: Labor productivity and safety are important topics in the construction industry. Even so, the literature provides little information for project managers trying to determine how management strategies designed to improve labor productivity impact safety. Method: This research addresses the gap by measuring the impact of two groups of management strategies that involve human resource related management strategies and construction related management strategies related to safety performance in construction projects. Data were collected from 111 general construction projects through the survey. Results: The results show that the relationship between the implemented management strategies and safety performance is nuanced with ‘Communication’ harming safety performance while implementation of ‘Labor Management,’ ‘Supervision and Leadership,’ ‘Planning’ and ‘Management of Construction’ strategies improve the level of safety performance. This study took a further step by measuring the impact of the interactions between the two groups of management strategies on safety performance. The results show that the interactions of construction and human related management strategies are not always in the favor of safety. Practical Applications: This paper adds to the literature on the relationship between productivity and safety in the construction industry. The research findings can assist project managers to improve labor productivity without harming the safety of laborers unintentionally.     

Practical safety management for small or medium enterprises

The article is intended for those who are not safety professionals but are responsible for safety management in a small or medium enterprise (SME) of the process industry. It assumes that a SME is loosely coupled and of low complexity and has a small number of major hazards present in it. The article describes Elementary Safety Management (ESM) as a combination of activities that maintain openness to safety impulses with Elementary Risk Control (ERC). ERC uses four milestones and three rules to get to the necessary and sufficient selection of control measures, which will achieve an acceptable level of risk. To make the ESM scheme as simple as possible, the term causal event is used, which is derived from the term causal factor. Practical Safety Management (PrSM) adds to the ESM the knowledge and skills that a person, who is supposed to design and implement a safety management system, needs. The PrSM procedure is developed to identify optimum controls. The procedure recognizes the unavoidable role of commitment to safety, respects the role of hazard identification, and integrates prospective and retrospective analyses and current knowledge of safety management systems. Examples of application of the procedure are given in the article.     

行为安全管理理论在我国的实践困境及其解决途径

行为安全管理理论在我国被广泛宣传与应用,但在概念理解、定量判断及影响因素的分析等方面存在着认识误区,要改变行为安全管理理论在实践中的困境,发挥其应有作用,笔者认为:应首先对理论研究中的相关概念进行规范,加强对我国生产安全事故与行为安全之间的定量关系研究;并将工程技术措施和组织管理措施作为事故风险的控制重点;探索符合我国职工特点的安全教育培训方式,增强企业的安全生产主体责任意识,提高安全投入的有效性,将安全融入到经济与社会发展过程中。只有为行为安全管理理论的实践和应用提供良好的环境和保障,才能进一步提升我国企业的生产安全事故风险控制水平。     

Where to focus? Insights from safety personnel and external safety consultants on lessons learned about safety climate interventions – A qualitative approach

Introduction: Safety climate is important for promoting workplace safety and health. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on the effective ways of planning, designing, and implementing safety climate interventions, especially regarding what is going to be changed and improved. To address this gap, the present study sought to extract a comprehensive pool of compiled suggestions for safety climate intervention based on qualitative interviews with professionals in occupational safety and health management from potentially hazardous industries. Method: A series of systematic semi-structured interviews, guided by a comprehensive sociotechnical systems framework, were conducted with company safety personnel (n = 26) and external safety consultants (n = 15) of 21 companies from various industries. The taxonomy of five work system components of the sociotechnical systems approach served as overarching themes, representing different areas of improvement in an organization for occupational safety and health promotion, with an aim of enhancing safety climate. Results: Of the 36 codes identified, seven codes were based on the theme of external environment work system, four were based on the theme of internal environment work system, five were based on the theme of organizational and managerial structure work system, 14 codes were based on the theme of personnel subsystem, and six were based on the theme of technical subsystem. Conclusions: Safety climate intervention strategies might be most commonly based upon the principles of human resource management (i.e., codes based on the personnel subsystem theme and organizational and managerial structure work system theme). Meanwhile, numerous attributes of external/internal environment work system and technical subsystem can be jointly improved to bolster safety climate in a holistic way. Practical Applications: More systematic and organized management of safety climate would be available when various interrelated codes pertinent to a given context are carefully considered for a safety climate intervention.     

Measuring safety culture in a research and development centre: A comparison of two methods in the Air Traffic Management domain

This paper describes two safety surveys carried out in an Air Traffic Management Research and Development centre (EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre). The paper discusses the differences and similarities between the two tools with regard to their development, the method of conducting the surveys, the results and their implications. It has been estimated that about 50%¹ to 60%² of accidents and incidents appear to have their roots in the design and development process, and since this is the core business of the EEC, it was deemed necessary to investigate the maturity of safety at the EEC. The challenge for the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre (EEC) was to develop a tool that is relevant to a research and development environment with the objectives of (i) identifying areas of weakness in the safety culture of the organization (ii) helping in developing a Safety Management System. The first objective was addressed by developing a Safety Culture Survey (SCS) tool and surveying the EEC (March, 2003). The second objective was addressed by customizing an existing (SMS) survey tool (RD) for the R&D environment. The SCS is based on traditional measures adapted to ATM and then to R&D, and the River Diagram (RD) is more of a safety management survey, adapted from other industries and already applied to HQ (EUROCONTROL Head Quarters) to examine their commitment to safety. Nevertheless, the two surveys have been compared to see where they agree and where they ‘dissociate’. Overall, the SCS has a broader focus on “softer issues”, i.e. more complex issues of ‘trust in management’. Diagnostically, the River Diagram survey helps the practitioner develop SMS implementation plans more readily than the Safety Culture survey.     

Editorial safety science special issue road safety management

The articles presented in this Special Issue on Road Safety Management represent an illustration of the growing interest in policy-related research in the area of road safety. The complex nature of this type of research combined with the observation that scientific journals pay limited attention to this type of research was the background for SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research in the Netherlands to organise a workshop on Scientific Research on Road Safety Management. This workshop generated a lot of attention in the road safety research community as well in the policy making community, and it was decided – in addition to the nine articles based on the presentations at the workshop – to include another seven articles which are considered of relevance for the chosen topic of this special issue.     

基于安全学习志的安全管理信息系统构建

通过分析论述安全学习志及安全管理信息系统的发展与特点,提出基于安全学习志安全管理信息系统的逻辑结构、总体构架和功能结构,以及从方法和技术角度为“安全学习志”在企业安全管理的应用提供一个全新的实现方案。本文把安全学习志这种理念融入到企业安全管理中,并对安全应急决策系统综合理论及安全管理信息系统建立技术方案的研究,目的在于为今后进一步的安全管理信息系统开发作理论和技术方法探索。     

A comparative analysis of safety management and safety performance in twelve construction projects

IntroductionSafety management in construction is complicated due to the complex “nature” of the construction industry. The aim of this research was to identify safety management factors (e.g., risk management and site management), contextual factors (e.g., organisational complexity) and combinations of such factors connected to safety performance. Method: Twelve construction projects were selected to compare their safety management and safety performance. An analytical framework was developed based on previous research, regulations, and standards where each management factor was defined. We employed qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to produce case knowledge, compare the cases, and identify connections between the factors and safety performance. The material collected and analyzed included, for example, construction planning documents, reports from OHS-inspections, safety indicators, and interviews with project leaders and OHS experts. Results and conclusions: The research showed that: (a) the average score on 12 safety management factors was higher among projects with high safety performance compared to projects with low safety performance; (b) high safety performance can be achieved with both high and low construction complexity and organizational complexity, but these factors complicate coordination of actors and operations; (c) it is possible to achieve high safety performance despite relatively poor performance on many safety management factors; (d) eight safety management factors were found to be “necessary” for high safety performance, namely roles and responsibilities, project management, OHS management and integration, safety climate, learning, site management, staff management, and operative risk management. Site management, operative risk management, and staff management were the three factors most strongly connected to safety performance. Practical implications: Construction stakeholders should understand that the ability to achieve high safety performance in construction projects is connected to key safety management factors, contextual factors, and combinations of such factors.     

安太堡露天煤矿职业健康安全管理体系绩效分析

通过对安太堡露天煤矿职业健康安全管理体系认证前后安全生产管理基础数据的调查和统计,采用定性和定量的分析方法对该企业的安全管理水平进行了绩效对比分析和模型分析。结果表明,对于露天煤矿企业,建立职业健康安全管理体系有利于提高企业安全管理的水平;同时证明,该绩效分析方法具有分析过程简单、分析结果科学实用等优点。     

加拿大油田安全管理的经验与建议

加拿大建立了健全的政府能源管理机构,有完善的油气开发安全法规和标准体系。安全监督部门对石油天然气企业的监督检查表现为：确定重点监督检查企业,确保专业监督检查人员执法质量,加大监督检查处罚力度,促进安全管理水平的提高。油气企业安全管理与操作人员培训由专业培训机构承担,特别重视井控和防硫化氢培训,所有一线作业人员接受ENFORM的培训后,其上岗资格才为企业和安全环保监督部门认可。笔者就加拿大油田的开发安全管理经验,结合国内实际提出建议：应建立完善健全的安全生产数据库管理系统,为企业安全生产管理提供依据,健全事故上报制度;提高企业安全文化水平,营造良好的安全工作环境;加强承包商安全生产管理,共建甲乙双方和谐安全环境。     

石油企业HSE管理文化建设实践

HSE管理体系在石油企业得到广泛推广和应用，对企业加强安全和环保管理起到了很好的作用。但由于中国石油企业的HSE管理与国外石油企业的发展经历不同，文化建设上必然存在差异。如何实现与国际石油界HSE管理的接轨，建立企业HSE文化，是当前石油企业国际化发展的一个重要课题。本文从石油企业建立HSE管理体系的探索和实践出发，提出了对HSE管理文化建设的思考，对企业加强制度管理、抓住HSE管理体系重点和把握HSE文化建设方向，有很好的指导作用。     

基于过程方法的企业安全评价指标体系构建方法

针对安全评价技术的应用现状,分析现有安全评价体系在构建上的局限性,认为安全评价体系应基于现代安全管理体系的运作方式进行构建;回顾安全管理的发展过程,对代表现代安全管理的两种管理模式的起源及特点进行了分析,认为两种管理模式都应用了质量管理的过程方法;在该基础之上,结合过程方法的特点与企业的实际运作方式,提出基于过程方法的安全管理模型,并运用该模型,对安全评价体系的指标构成进行分析;以危险源识别、管理过程、安全教育与培训和应急准备与响应4个指标为基础,构建了安全评价体系的框架。     

安全管理决策支持系统及其最新进展

安全管理是企业管理的重要组成部分,是实现安全生产的有力保证.决策支持系统是实现安全管理定性与定量分析有机结合的有效手段.该文结合安全管理,简要阐述了决策支持系统产生的背景、内容和发展趋势.介绍了作者在企业安全管理决策支持系统研制方面的主要结果和进一步工作的构想.     

企业不同层级员工安全文化培训探讨

安全文化在事故预防中具有不可替代的重要作用,而培训是企业安全文化改善技术手段的重要方面。本文在中国矿业大学（北京）安全管理课题组现阶段研究成果的基础上,研究来自山东、河南、山西、东北4个省的10个样本煤矿的四类层级员工——管理层、专业人员、班组长、一线员工的安全文化初始测量值、两次培训后的提高幅度值和32条核心理念的得分情况。得出初始安全文化测量值不同层次员工的得分从高至低依次为：管理层,专业人员,班组长,一线员工;第一次培训后提高幅度值从高到低为：班组长,专业人员,管理层,一线员工;第二次培训后提高幅度值从高到低为：班组长,一线员工,管理层,专业人员并分析了得分高低不同的原因。     

基于改进贝叶斯神经网络的航空公司安全敏感性分析

针对当下航空公司安全质量管理体系(Quality Management System,SQMS)中风险识别与可靠性改进的问题,提出了基于区间数学改进的贝叶斯神经网络的灵敏度分析方法。利用区间数学理论分析贝叶斯神经网络中各指标与整体安全质量状况的扰动关系,实现指标灵敏度分析。通过东方航空公司的实例分析,发现在对指标进行人工干预时组合指标干预效果较好,且安全管理体系实施后指标的灵敏度有明显向好的方向变化的趋势。     

Measuring safety climate in elderly homes

IntroductionProvision of a valid and reliable safety climate dimension brings enormous benefits to the elderly home sector. The aim of the present study was to make use of the safety climate instrument developed by OSHC to measure the safety perceptions of employees in elderly homes such that the factor structure of the safety climate dimensions of elderly homes could be explored.MethodIn 2010, surveys by mustering on site method were administered in 27 elderly homes that had participated in the "Hong Kong Safe and Healthy Residential Care Home Accreditation Scheme" organized by the Occupational Safety and Health Council.ResultsSix hundred and fifty-one surveys were returned with a response rate of 54.3%. To examine the factor structure of safety climate dimensions in our study, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal components analysis method was conducted to identify the underlying factors. The results of the modified seven-factor's safety climate structure extracted from 35 items better reflected the safety climate dimensions of elderly homes. The Cronbach alpha range for this study (0.655 to 0.851) indicated good internal consistency among the seven-factor structure. Responses from managerial level, supervisory and professional level, and front-line staff were analyzed to come up with the suggestion on effective ways of improving the safety culture of elderly homes. The overall results showed that managers generally gave positive responses in the factors evaluated, such as "management commitment and concern to safety," "perception of work risks and some contributory influences," "safety communication and awareness," and "safe working attitude and participation." Supervisors / professionals, and frontline level staff on the other hand, have less positive responses. The result of the lowest score in the factors - "perception of safety rules and procedures" underlined the importance of the relevance and practicability of safety rules and procedures.ConclusionThe modified OSHC safety climate tool provided better evidence of structural validity and reliability for use by elderly homes' decision makers as an indicator of employee perception of safety in their institution.Impact on industryThe findings and suggestions in the study provide useful information for the management, supervisors/professionals and frontline level staff to cultivate the safety culture in the elderly home sector. Most important, elderly homes can use the modified safety climate scale to identify problem areas in their safety culture and safety management practices and then target these for intervention.