试论安全科学研究的特殊矛盾

提出安全科学研究的特殊矛盾是安全与事故的矛盾，也就是研究危险。设计出了安全、危险、事故相互转化的示意图。论述了危险的普遍性、特殊性、绝对性、可转化性、可认识性以及认识安全科学研究特殊矛盾的重要意义。     

关于安全科学基本概念及相互关系的研究

安全、危险、风险、事故、隐患等是安全科学和安全管理的基本概念。对于这些概念，至今仍有不同认识。本文从国内外研究现状出发，对上述基本概念及相互关系进行了分析探讨。Ｐｒｏｆ．     

Safety climate in university and college laboratories: impact of organizational and individual factors

INTRODUCTION: Universities and colleges serve to be institutions of education excellence; however, problems in the areas of occupational safety may undermine such goals. Occupational safety must be the concern of every employee in the organization, regardless of job position. Safety climate surveys have been suggested as important tools for measuring the effectiveness and improvement direction of safety programs. Thus, this study aims to investigate the influence of organizational and individual factors on safety climate in university and college laboratories. METHOD: Employees at 100 universities and colleges in Taiwan were mailed a self-administered questionnaire survey; the response rate was 78%. RESULTS: Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that organizational category of ownership, the presence of a safety manager and safety committee, gender, age, title, accident experience, and safety training significantly affected the climate. Among them, accident experience and safety training affected the climate with practical significance. RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors recommend that managers should address important factors affecting safety issues and then create a positive climate by enforcing continuous improvements.     

推行风险抵押制度增强矿山安全执法的可操作性

为贯彻《矿山安全法》，１９９３ 年，句容市制定了《矿山企业安全生产风险抵押金制度》及其《实施细则》。操作中，按生产规模，制定五种风险金收交档次，每年初，企业将风险金交市安委会，年终实行企业、主管部门和市安委会“三级”考核，并按等级返还，返还额可用于下年风险金按同档加倍缴纳。风险抵押，也可用于内部奖励。发生事故，风险金余款作为全市安全生产活动和奖励资金。经过几年运作，取得了明显效果，矿山事故逐年下降，得到部、省、市的肯定和表彰     

关于安全投资效益目标函数的建立和优化

通过对安全投资与事故经济损失的规律性的分析研究，确立安全投资与经济效益的内在关系，进一步探索在我国现有财力和安全水平的基础上，找准安全投资的投向，优化安全投资的合理分配，从而实现最大限度地提高企业安全生产水平和安全投资效益。为政府部门或企业提供一套经过优化、科学合理、操作性又比较强的安全投资方案，供各级领导进行安全决策，实现本部门、本单位的安全投资计划时参考     

关于人机系统安全分析中人的因素的一些探讨

在对人机系统安全分析中，重点对人的因素进行探讨，并提出了新的见解。在人机系统中，人的生理特性和心理特性不是恒定不变的，特别在人机系统安全分析与设计时，关于人的因素必须从动态特性变化来认识     

Safety with access scaffolds: development of a prototype decision aid based on accident analysis

PROBLEM: Accidents involving temporary access systems, particularly temporary scaffolds, account for a large proportion of injuries in the construction industry worldwide. METHOD: This paper outlines the development of a prototype decision aid (SCAFPASS, an abbreviation for Scaffold Planning Aid for System Safety) to promote access scaffold safety. It was guided by an examination of the root-causes and management deficiencies apparent in: (a) paper-based files of 186 access-related incidents held by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the UK; and (b) computer-based files of 2,910 incidents appearing in the HSE database between 1997 to 2000. RESULTS: The more frequent root-causes included the fitting of defective components, unauthorized modification of the structure, omission of barriers, and errors resulting in simple, readily detectable structural faults. Common managerial deficiencies included failure to control risk, unsafe methods and procedures, and inadequate training and supervision. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: SCAFPASS aims to avoid these root-causes by improving safety management from the outset and throughout all phases of a project.     

Are safety investigations pro-active?

This paper elaborates on the debate whether safety investigations are obsolete and should be replaced by more modern safety assessment approaches. Despite their past performance, in particular in aviation, accident investigations are criticized for their reactive nature and the lack of learning potential they provide. Although safety management systems are considered a modern method with a more prospective potential, they too are hard to judge by their quantitative performance. Instead of measuring both concepts along the lines of their output, this contribution explores the origin, context and notions behind both approaches. Both approaches prove to be adaptive to new developments and have the ability to shift their focus towards learning and cognition. In assessing their potential, accident investigations prove to cover a specific domain of application in the risk domain of low probability and major consequences, fulfilling a mission as public safety assessor. In order to make optimal use of their analytic and diagnostic potential, investigations should mobilize more complex and sophisticated scientific theories and notions, in particular of a non-linear nature. Consequently, they are neither reactive, nor proactive, but provide a specific approach to safety issues.     

Modeling patterns of breakdown (or archetypes) of human and organizational processes in accidents using system dynamics

Systems approaches to safety have received growing attention in modern accident investigation techniques (e.g., STAMP, Accimap) with the emphasis shifted to the organizational dynamics (or archetypes) that may lead to an erosion of defenses and a drift out of the safety margins. Although the literature contains many applications of archetypes and system dynamics to safety, this richness comes at a cost of learning. It has become very difficult for safety practitioners to integrate the diverse studies of system dynamics with their diverging models. To provide a practical tool of system dynamics in accident investigation, this article reviews earlier studies and integrates them as a classification of patterns of breakdown (or archetypes) of both human and organizational processes on the basis of two control models, that is, the Extended Control Model (ECOM) and the Viable System Model (VSM). In this article, archetypes are represented as variants of two generic templates of performance which exploit many elements of complexity theory and system control. Apart from providing a practical tool to safety practitioners to access the literature on archetypes, the generic templates of ECOM and VSM can be used in building simulators of individual and organizational processes for risk analysis.     

The effect of integrated management system on safety and productivity indices: Case study; Iranian cement industries

Nowadays, with implementation of management systems and environment management and due to the influence of safety and health issues on working processes, organizations have also sought to acquire health and safety management systems. This study which aims to examine the influence of integrated management system on safety and productivity indices has retrospective experimental nature. It was conducted in Cement Factories in which three systems are used: quality, environment and safety systems. The collected data were: accident reports and the investigation of events in 6 years during 2005-2010 (3 years before and 3 years after the implementation of the system). The safety indices that used in this study are: IFR, ISR, FSI, and Safe T. Score. Then, the data analyzed with the T-test, mean and standard deviation. The results showed a significant difference between various safety indices before and after the implementation. The examination of production indices such as increasing rate of productivity and production indicates the influence of these systems on production and productivity indices. The results have showed that the safety system existence cannot ensure productivity increase. Indices definition can be helpful for the safety system effectiveness and system continual improvement. It is important to say that there might be various indices definition in different industries.     

Implementation and evaluation of the Safety Element Method at four mining sites

The Safety Element Method (SEM) is a method for improvements of safety results and safety approaches in the Norwegian mining industry. The method is developed by users and researchers in co-operation. The main approach of the method is that a group of organisational members assesses the current and desired situation for their own organisation within defined areas. Based on this assessment they work out a strategy and action plan to reach the internal goals for desired achievement, i.e. the desired situation defined. This article presents the implementation of the method in four mining companies and evaluates the method for its construct validity, criterion validity, face validity, how the method functions and is accepted among the users. The results show that the opinions regarding the experiences with the method are, on the whole, positive. The method is regarded as a valuable approach towards safety improvements. Subjective assessments play a prominent role in SEM, but these assessments are supported by an extensive review of empirical data such as accident reports, interview results and a questionnaire. This means that the internal assessments correspond well to the safety results of the companies and also to the independent external reviews carried out by the researcher.     

Safety-culture in a Norwegian shipping company

Problem: Although there has been considerable interest in safety culture and safety climate in many industries, little attention has been given to safety culture in one of the world's riskiest industries, shipping. Method: Using both self developed items and items from published research on safety culture, safety climate, and quality and management style, a 40-item safety culture questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire was distributed in a self-administered form to sailors onboard 20 vessels and to officers attending a seminar in Manila. A total of 349 questionnaires were collected (total response rate, 60%). Results, discussion and impact on industry: Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed 11 factors when the Kaiser eigenvalue rule was used and four factors when the scree test criterion was used. The factor structure in the material confirmed structures found in other industries. The relative importance of the factors from the factor analysis on “level of safety” measures was tested by canonical correlation analysis and regression analysis. The results confirmed previous research and showed that the most important factors were influential across industries. To determine weather differences existed between nationalities, occupations, and vessels the factors from the PCA was subjected to Multiple Discriminant Analysis. Significant differences between occupations, nations, and vessels were found on one or more of the factors from the PCA.     

Safety assessment for accident of cooling loop failure (ACLF) in lunar nuclear power reactor (LNPR)

The safety assessment of an accident in the lunar base power plant is investigated for the stability of the operation. The lunar surface reactor is modeled for this study. The accident of cooling loop failure (ACLF) is one of the important scenarios for the virtual case in the moon nuclear power plant (NPP). The newly designed lunar nuclear power reactor (LNPR) is suggested for the commercial purpose. The system dynamics (SD) is used for the simulation of the safety assessment. The cyclic variation of the lunar surface temperature can affect to the physical situation of the coolant, which is expressed by the time step. The result shows the performance possibility of the long term cooling increases slightly in the short period of the time step. The dynamical simulation of the lunar environment is performed for the conceptual design of the NPP.     

Pitfalls in the application of utility functions to the valuation of human life

Safety strategies in the process and other industries depend ultimately on how much the owners and operators decide should be spent on protection systems to protect workers and the public from potential plant hazards. An important input to decisions of this sort is the value of life, which needs to be assessed in a valid manner so that safety decisions can be made properly. A key reference point for decisions on safety investment decisions in the UK is a 1999 study on the “value of a prevented fatality” (VPF), which employs a two-injury chained model that has been shown previously by the present authors to possess internal inconsistencies. The 1999 study made extensive use of utility functions to interpret survey data, and it is this feature that is explored in this paper. It will be explained here how different forms of utility function of the Exponential family can produce the same figure for an intermediate parameter in the calculation of the VPF from the two-injury chained model. Exponential utility functions are, however, unlikely to provide a realistic representation if their calculated risk-aversions need to be negative or zero in order to match survey data, which would imply an incautious attitude amongst those taking decisions on safety. The use of an incompletely specified wealth threshold in the utility modelling is explored in the light of a proposal by the authors of the 1999 study that a second utility function can be used to determine the individual's utility when his wealth lies below the threshold, which constitutes the lower limit of validity of the first utility function. The proposition is shown to be untenable. The results presented in this paper raise further concerns about the lack of validity of the 1999 study on which the UK VPF is based and hence on the safety decisions that have been made in consequence.     

The role of production and teamwork practices in construction safety: A cognitive model and an empirical case study

Problem

In construction, the challenge for researchers and practitioners is to develop work systems (production processes and teams) that can achieve high productivity and high safety at the same time. However, construction accident causation models ignore the role of work practices and teamwork. This study investigates the mechanisms by which production and teamwork practices affect the likelihood of accidents.

Method

The paper synthesizes a new model for construction safety based on the cognitive perspective (Fuller's Task-Demand-Capability Interface model, 2005) and then presents an exploratory case study. The case study investigates and compares the work practices of two residential framing crews: a 'High Reliability Crew' (HRC)—that is, a crew with exceptional productivity and safety over several years, and an average performing crew from the same company.

Results

The model explains how the production and teamwork practices generate the work situations that workers face (the task demands) and affect the workers ability to cope (capabilities). The case study indicates that the work practices of the HRC directly influence the task demands and match them with the applied capabilities. These practices were guided by the 'principle' of avoiding errors and rework and included work planning and preparation, work distribution, managing the production pressures, and quality and behavior monitoring.

Summary

The Task Demand-Capability model links construction research to a cognitive model of accident causation and provides a new way to conceptualize safety as an emergent property of the production practices and teamwork processes. The empirical evidence indicates that the crews' work practices and team processes strongly affect the task demands, the applied capabilities, and the match between demands and capabilities.

Impact on Industry

The proposed model and the exploratory case study will guide further discovery of work practices and teamwork processes that can increase both productivity and safety in construction operations. Such understanding will enable training of construction foremen and crews in these practices to systematically develop high reliability crews.     

Age differences in safety attitudes and safety performance in Hong Kong construction workers

PROBLEM: Safety in the construction industry is a major issue in Hong Kong, representing about 46% of all occupational injuries in 1998. This study explored linear and curvilinear relations between age and safety performance (accident rates and occupational injuries), as well as safety attitudes, in construction workers in Hong Kong. METHOD: A Chinese version of the Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ by Donald & Canter) was developed and administered to a sample of Chinese construction workers (N=374, 366 males, 8 females) from 27 construction sites. RESULTS: Accident rates were not related to age. Occupational injuries were related to age in a curvilinear manner, with injuries at first increasing with age, then decreasing. Two safety attitude scales were related to age with older workers exhibiting more positive attitudes to safety. If age and tenure are controlled, some attitude scales are predictors of safety performance. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Management/supervisors, team leaders, and workers are all responsible for safety, and any negative bias toward older construction workers is unfounded.