Safety pyramid

Serious incidents may be predicated by a number of less-severe related incidents resulting in minor or even no loss. Such predicating events may be low-consequence incidents such as loss of containment into a diked area, near misses, or failures in which no injuries, damage, or loss occurred. This relationship between no- or low-impact events and actual process safety incidents is demonstrated in the process safety pyramid (see Figure 1.2). ... 

Use of the process safety pyramid in selecting metrics is discussed in Chapters 3 and 6. 

Figure 1.2 Process Safety Pyramid (CCPS, 2007b)...

The process safety pyramid described in Figure 1.2 provides a useful concept for categorizing metrics by severity. Lagging, leading, and near-miss metrics are associated with the different levels of the safety pyramid. Figure 3.1 illustrates how each of these four areas fit into that categorization. ... 

Regardless of whether one uses the process safety pyramid, the Swiss cheese model, or something else (for example, the anatomy of an incident model discussed in HEP 3), the concepts of... 

The manifestations of Safety-1 are accidents, incidents, near misses, etc., as illustrated by the different levels of the safety pyramid or by lists proposed by specific safety programmes, such as the European Technology Platform on Industrial Safety (ETPIS) described above. We thus say that a system is unsafe if such events happen, particularly if accidents happen. Conversely we say that it is safe, if no such events happen - remembering Karl Welch s definition of safety as a dynamic non-event, discussed earlier. 

To facilitate road safety comparisons between countries, Coimtiy Overviews were developed in DaCoTA for each countiy [AAR 12], not only presenting the current state of road safety in terms of annual number of crashes or traffic victims, but also containing information on precursors for crashes, such as behavior and policy in a countiy. This information is organized by using the Road Safety Pyramid [WEG 05] which covers all layers related to stmcture and culture, programs and measures, road safety performance, indicators, road safety outcomes and social cost. 

H. W. Heinrich first described the relationship between exposure and preventable adverse events in 1959, and it has been emphasized in most standard safety texts ever since. It is expressed as the familiar safety pyramid (Figure 2-2), which illustrates two points ... 

Property damage and loss of production must also be considered in loss prevention. These losses can be substantial. Accidents of this type are much more common than fatalities. This is demonstrated in the accident pyramid shown in Figure 1-3. The numbers provided are only approximate. The exact numbers vary by industry, location, and time. No Damage accidents are frequently called near misses and provide a good opportunity for companies to determine that a problem exists and to correct it before a more serious accident occurs. It is frequently said that the cause of an accident is visible the day before it occurs. Inspections, safety reviews and careful evaluation of near misses will identify hazardous conditions that can be corrected before real accidents occur. 

Dowell, A.M. 2002. "Getting from Policy to Practices The Pyramid Model (Or What Is this Standard Really Trying to Do )." Process Safety Progress 21(1). March. 

Many companies have implemented a system to have peers observe and try to correct the behavior of peers by coaching or other means. This is part of a behavior based safety management system. This system should operate in the nonincident portion of the error pyramid. Include examples in a listing, such as Table 5-1, to illustrate the differences. 

Yet whilst Hollnagel (2014) warned of the allure of the graphical presentation that propelled the accident pyramid to its continued prominence in safety thinking (as discussed in Chapter 4), zero should arguably come with several warnings of its own the allure of the big round number, the allure of mathematics and measurement, and the allure of the snappy slogan - aptly illustrated in Figure 8.1. 

To amplify this point, safety and loss prevention professionals often use the pyramid model to drive home the point that near-misses and other underlying factors, if not addressed, will ultimately lead to an accident. Visualize a pyramid or triangle starting at the bottom, for every 300 equipment damage accidents or... 

The assumption underpinning the incident pyramid is that the causes for all types of event are the same. In fact, this assumption is only partially correct because the root causes of minor events are different from those that lead to process safety events. Therefore, improving day-to-day safety will not necessarily reduce the number of serious incidents. Minor events are typically caused by occupational problems such as trips and falls, lack of proper PPE, and improper use of machinery. Major events, however, are more often caused by process safety problems such as incorrect instrument settings, corrosion, or mixing of incompatible chemicals. Hence a program that leads to improvements in occupational safety will not necessarily help reduce the frequency of process-related events. Indeed, improvements in the occupational safety record may induce a false sense of confidence regarding the potential for a major event. (It is probable, however, that a poor performance in occupational safety will correlate positively with a poor performance in process safety.)... 

Pistol and ammunition combat quality, reliability and safety are integrated (interconnected) and they form a common whole. They create a common pyramid with combat quahty as a base and a frame and with safety on the peak (see Fig. 2). 

Figure 3.2 The pyramid of road safety indicators and levels of performance...

Figure 5-3 Safety accident pyramid. Bird, Frank E., George L. Germain, Loss Control Management Practical Loss Control Leadership, revised edition. Figure 1-3, p. 5, Del Norske Veritas (U.S.A.), Inc., 1996. Adapted for use by Damon Carter.

Rgure 9-1 Safety performance pyramid. Manzella, James C., Measuring Safety Performance to Achieve Long-Term improvement, Professional Safety, September 1999, p. 35, Figure 1. Reproduced with permission. 

Refer to Rgure 9-1 for a safety performance pyramid. This pyramid is a graphical overview of consequences of outcomes of nonconformance and upstream activities (controls). Basically, if you do proactive activities, you will reduce your near misses, work error, etc. This is because there is more involvement of employees as we discussed in Chapter 7, Employee Participation. ... 

When an incident occurs that results in an injury or in damage to property or equipment, we often find that the employees had been doing a particular job task the same way for a long time. This time luck ran out [5]. Refer to Chapter 5, Figure 5-3 to understand what is considered luck and then review the safety accident pyramid. 

Competency stmcture for functional safety During the discussions on lEC standards, it was seen that there should be a responsible authority to implement the safety principles. For organizations, a company safety authority (CSA) is charged with this responsibility. Core principles endorsed by senior management are collectively referred to as strategic competency principles, which are based on a multi-tiered approach to demonstrating functional safety capability. A typical competency pyramid is shown in Fig. VI/1.1-1. There are four strategic competency principles ... 

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