Safety philosophy

The TM heard ten papers. There was ample time allocated to discussion, and the participants did engage in a very lively dialogue. From the overall deliberations, the following four main themes emerged safety philosophy, structural integrity assessment, thermal hydraulics, and new concepts. 

In the following sections, the countrywise assessment of these four themes is summarized. Following that, the discussions that evolved around the major technical issues addressed in the meeting are summarized. Issues on which an overall agreement was reached amongst the participants are discussed as resolved , while the others, on which there was no agreement, or where it was difficult to reach an unanimous position, are discussed as open issues. Finally, indications on further Member States information exchange and collaborative R D needs. 

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Farmer, F. R., and E. V. Gilby, 1971, Reactor Safety Philosophy and Experimental Verification, Paper A/Conf. 49, p. 477, Fourth Int. Conf. on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Geneva. (5)... 

Systemic safety management especially prominent after a major organisational disaster, which forces the organisation to take a fundamental look at its entire safety philosophy the appropriate view of human error is the system-induced error concept, which says that many human errors can be... 

Westrum (1988) has put forward another classification of organisations on the basis of their safety philosophies, or rather according to their typical responses to safety related incidents he distinguishes pathological , calcula-tive , and generative organisations. Lucas (1992) characterises these as follows ... 

It is a part of the safety philosophy in power engineering that cable connections and bare conducting parts shall withstand the forces of short-circuits without any adverse effects to the clearances. 

Ensuring the recommendation follows the safety philosophy applied to the... 

The safety philosophy for future nuclear plants will most probably include the protection against aircraft crash (penetration and induced vibrations) as well as chemical explosion waves such that a respective contribution to the risk is minimal. 

Under what conditions is it permissible to switch on a pump, a valve, a stirrer, and so on These and other questions are answered by the function plans (Figure 5-4). They also document the entire safety philosophy of the plant (Section 2.8.3). In continuous plants they couple sensor signals (T, P, L, F, Q, etc.) via logic components (AND, OR, NOT, etc.) with the actuators (pumps, valves, motors, etc.) (see Section 2.8). 

The following sections describe the method which has been employed to ensure the consistent incorporation of this safety philosophy into the design. 

A description of the design safety philosophy, features, and systems provided on the installation with emphasis on safety philosophy... 

The Doe Run Company strives to be one of the safest employers in the world. As such, comprehensive programs focusing on safety and hygiene are in place for the benefit of the employees. The Doe Run safety philosophy is continuously taught and practiced at the Herculaneum smelter. As a result, the frequency and severity of the accidents in the plant have continually decreased in recent years. 

Because the HTR-10 test reactor is designed on the inherent safety philosophy, safety classifications of systems and components departure from the way it is done for water cooled power reactors For example, primary pressure boundary is defined to the first isolation valve Steam generator tubes are classified as Class II component Diesel generators are not required to be as highly qualified as those used for large water cooled power reactors, since no systems or components with large power demand would require an immediate start of the diesel engines at a plant black-out accident... 

Modern safety philosophy teaches that for every injury-producing event there are literally hundreds of similar breakdowns that under slightly different circumstances could have resulted in a loss. They didn t cause loss in most instances because of the luck factors, but should not be ignored because many have potential to cause loss, and nevertheless indicate system failures. 

One of the biggest obstacles to safety efforts, the prevention of accidents, and change interventions is the fear factor that snrrounds all aspects of safety at the workplace. Unless this fear factor is identified and the root canses of it eliminated by changing the safety philosophies of the organization, all efforts to introduce a positive safety culture will fail. 

Old safety philosophy assumes that at any given time workers make a choice to work safe or not, whereas modem safety thinking assumes that accidents are defects in the total system and that people are only a part of the system. 

The method for safety improvement, according to antiquated safety philosophy, is to persuade and appeal to workers to be safer, whereas modem safety thinking is that methods for improvement involve identifying appropriate ways to improve the system. 

Outdated safety philosophy assumes that accidents are the woiker s fault. Modem safety philosophy assumes that there are multiple causes for accidents, and that the root causes and the reason behind the behavior should be sought and rectified. 

In many of the top companies around the world, the safety director s position is as a vice president reporting directly to the chief executive. This clearly shows the organization s commitment to safety and supports the importance of its safety philosophy. The person in this position needs to be a professional who clearly nnder-stands the safety management process. 

The course material handed out contained an introduction paragraph stating that 95% of all accidents are the fault of the worker, or words to that effect. Again, this was a contradiction of our new safety philosophy that accidents have multiple causes, and the philosophy of getting to the root causes of system failures. 

Friend, M.A. 1997. Examine Your Safety Philosophy. Professional Safety, February, p. 34. 

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