Does energy-based hazard recognition training improve firefighter HAZID? This tested energy-based hazard recognition on 43 US firefighters pre & post, and 3 months later, employing a control group. PS. Check out my YouTube: https://youtube.com/@safe_as_pod?si=V2dbdmW–WbnhzA9 Shout a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson Extracts: • “Hazard recognition is often regarded as the first step in the safety management process …When… Continue reading Improving firefighters hazard recognition with energy-based hazard recognition training
When operators become designers: microprojects, bricolage, and safety in high-risk systems
Does worker adaptation create safer work? This explored how offshore workers undertake microprojects via bricolage, improvising temporary solutions from available resources when original designs (WAI) don’t meet their needs (WAD). Shared under open access licence. PS. Check out my YouTube: https://youtube.com/@safe_as_pod?si=V2dbdmW–WbnhzA9 Shout a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson Extracts: • Offshore work is “exacerbated by the complexity of… Continue reading When operators become designers: microprojects, bricolage, and safety in high-risk systems
Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill Part 2: AI, Machine Learning & Near Misses
Can AI help us identify critical safety blind-spots before disaster? Part 2 interview with Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill who unpacks her 20+ years of research on decision-making under risk, outcome bias, and how organizations misinterpret near misses. We discuss: a) why near-miss biases shape human decision-making & how we can build robust systems to counter them… Continue reading Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill Part 2: AI, Machine Learning & Near Misses
This week on Safe As: Strong, Silent & Wrong automation and procedural departures leading to success
This week on Safe As, we unpacked two types of the ‘same same, but different’ systemic blind-spots: a hazardous gap between work-as-imagined/prescribed/designed and work-as-done. 1. Dangerous software: In Dekker & Woods article ‘Strong, Silent, and Wrong’ on automation failure, they use the 838 MAX MCAS accidents to show what happens when high-authority automated systems operate… Continue reading This week on Safe As: Strong, Silent & Wrong automation and procedural departures leading to success
~11k work-related deaths: 1% from accidents but 46% from occupational cancer
~11k work-related deaths: 1% from accidents but 46% from occupational cancer. In 2019, an estimated ~11k work-related deaths occurred across the Nordic countries. Only 143, or 1%, were attributed to accidents at work. This data came from the report ‘Work today and in the future Part three. Work-related fatalities in the Nordic countries’. It attributes… Continue reading ~11k work-related deaths: 1% from accidents but 46% from occupational cancer
The Rhetoric of Risk: Does the investigation form ‘write’ the findings before anyone investigates?
What if sometimes the investigation template has written the findings before anyone investigates? In Beverly Sauer’s interesting ‘Rhetoric of Risk’, she examines a US mining agency’s Physical Barrier Analysis Matrix. Via 50 accidents, it recorded that physical barriers were “not possible or practical” in most of them. For Sauer, this form “seems constructed to support”… Continue reading The Rhetoric of Risk: Does the investigation form ‘write’ the findings before anyone investigates?
If procedural deviation is a primary ’cause’ of failure, what if it’s also a primary ’cause’ of success? (Safe As Quickisodes)
If procedural deviation is a primary ’cause’ of failure, what if it’s also a primary ’cause’ of success? Today on Safe As Quickisodes, I rapidly unpack a study tracking 1,422 procedural steps across 40 petrochemical operations. Link in comments. Using their Skip-Order-Action (SOA) Framework, they explored how frontline personnel navigate written instructions in practice: revealing… Continue reading If procedural deviation is a primary ’cause’ of failure, what if it’s also a primary ’cause’ of success? (Safe As Quickisodes)
Free webinar on audits and safety assurance
If you’re interested, I’ll be catching up with the Critical Risk Group to discuss all things audits and safety assurance (mostly failures…) Register here: https://bit.ly/4hKmMJ8
SIF construction fall from height risk 10x higher than occupational health exposure limit – Swedish study
How much “risk” do organisations accept at work? This new Swedish study of scaffolders estimated a projected working-life risk of around 3.1 to 3.6% for a “very serious injury” (e.g. a fatal fall from height or fall resulting in at least 1 year sick leave). Interestingly, and perhaps provocatively, the authors compare this estimate with… Continue reading SIF construction fall from height risk 10x higher than occupational health exposure limit – Swedish study
The One‐Per‐Thousand Effect: Rare Catastrophic Events, Hindsight, and Defensive Medicine in Modern Obstetrics
Can one tragic event make things worse for thousands who aren’t at risk? Really interesting conceptual paper discussing a one-per-thousand effect: the process which “a rare catastrophic outcome acquires an organisational influence disproportionate to its frequency”. PS. Check out my YouTube: https://youtube.com/@safe_as_pod?si=V2dbdmW–WbnhzA9 Shout a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/benhutchinson Extracts: • “Every obstetrician remembers the newborn who was… Continue reading The One‐Per‐Thousand Effect: Rare Catastrophic Events, Hindsight, and Defensive Medicine in Modern Obstetrics
