Perspectives Within Changing Environments

Today the requirements are basically comparable for distributors, with the expectation that laws and regulations imposed on environmental protection and safety in general will become even more stringent. 

These three trends offer significant opportunities, especially for the large distributors which have sufficient resources to cover the geographical scope and skill requirements, and to create new win-win business relationships with suppliers and customers. 

While local dynamics will always remain vital to the profitability of chemical distributors, strategic partnerships with suppliers and customers will play an increasing role in their performance. To ensure substantial value growth, specific key success factors must be fulfilled to enable distributors to leap to the next industry S-curve as partners of the chemical industry and chemical-consuming manufacturers. 

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Existing risk analysis techniques commonly focus on the interaction of technical aspects of systems. However, we argue that within complex systems, sociotechnical factors, including the interaction of people with technical components, and the effect of the environment on those interactions provides a different perspective on the risks associated with a system. This view is especially relevant to safety and mission critical systems, where significant consideration to be given to the risks associated with system change and evolution. 

These data are not meant to suggest that employees are directly to blame for 96 percent of their injuries. From the perspective of behavioral psychology, all behavior is a function of the environment in which it occurs. Unsafe work behavior is accordingly the result of (1) the physical environment, (2) the social environment, and (3) workers experience within these. The remainder of this book is dedicated to how to change the workplace environment in ways that increase safe behavior. 

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