System safety concept incident causation

Analysis, that can assist with the identihcation of causal factors. The concepts of incident causation encompassed in these tools are fundamental to the majority of investigation methodologies. (See Chapter 3 for information about the Domino Theory, System Theory, and HBT Theory.) The simplest approach involves reviewing each unplanned, unintended, or adverse item (negative event or undesirable condition) on the timeline and asking, Would the incident have been prevented or mitigated if the item had not existed If the answer is yes, then the item is a causal factor. Generally, process safety incidents involve multiple causal factors. 

The design of most process plants relies on redundant safety features or layers of protection, such that multiple layers must fail before a serious incident occurs. Barrier analysis ) (also called Hazard-Barrier-Target Analysis, HBTA) can assist the identification of causal factors by identifying which safety feature(s) failed to function as desired and allowed the sequence of events to occur. These safety features or barriers are anything that is used to protect a system or person from a hazard including both physical and administrative layers of protection. The concepts of the hazard-barrier-target theory of incident causation are encompassed in this tool. (See Chapter 3.)... 

Both the integrative model by Smillie Ayoub (1975) and the deviation concept by Kjellen (1984a) connect the general systems theory to the sequencing and energy models of accident causation. They encompass technical, organizational and human components of the system. Various methods of system safety analysis (e.g. fault tree analysis, incidental factor analysis) support the identification of technical and human deviations as well as the analysis of the conditions and consequences of these deviations. From the discussion of near misses and conflicts it became clear that frameworks of accident causation should cover all kinds of incidents, thus becoming frameworks of incidents. 

Chapter 5 is devoted to safety in offshore oil and gas industry. Some of the topics covered in this chapter are offshore industrial sector risk picture, offshore worker situation awareness concept, offshore industry accident reporting approach, and offshore industry accidents case studies. Chapter 6 is devoted to case studies of oil tanker spill-related accidents, oil tanker spill analysis, and oil spill causes. Chapter 7 presents various important aspects of human factors contribution to accidents in the oil and gas industry and fatalities in the industry. Some of the topics covered in this chapter are human factors that affect safety in general, categorization of accident-related human factors in the industrial sector, categories of human factors accident causation in the oil industry, and recommendations to reduce fatal oil and gas industry incidents. Chapter 8 is devoted to case studies of maintenance influence on major accidents in the oil and gas industry and safety-instrumented systems and their spurious activation in the oil and gas industry. 

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