Foundations of Safety Science: Resilience Engineering and safety as the presence of capacities

More extracts from Foundations of Safety Science, this time from Ch.11 on Resilience Engineering and the adaptive perspective. This is 1 of probably 2 or 3 more posts. Some extracts: These logics come from a wider body of safety science, which includes some intertwined positions, like: Parts 2 & 3…some other time. Ref: Dekker, S.… Continue reading Foundations of Safety Science: Resilience Engineering and safety as the presence of capacities

Escaping Failures of Foresight

An interesting discussion paper from David Woods, in response to a paper from Andrew Hopkins discussing process safety indicators (see my article from a few weeks back). ** I haven’t done a good job of this – so suggest you read the original paper. You might want a strong coffee. Woods takes a bit of… Continue reading Escaping Failures of Foresight

Interventions and measurements of highly reliable/resilient organization implementations: A literature review

This reviewed literature on High Reliability Organisations (HRO) and similar approaches in Resilience Engineering (RE) from 1981 to 2020 to determine its impact. 34 articles out of 1400 met inclusion. For background: ·       “There is a class of organizations that can do catastrophic harm to themselves and a larger public” and within this set, there’s… Continue reading Interventions and measurements of highly reliable/resilient organization implementations: A literature review

Doctors are more dangerous than gun owners: a rejoinder to error counting

This 2006 paper from Sid Dekker critically challenges the assumptions underlying “error counting” in safety. Some points: (Not a summary) Error background Complex systems Shout me a coffee Study link: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=14d15a68409057ad5df9fccd960b47f57c69b911 My site with more reviews: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_this-2006-paper-from-sid-dekker-critically-activity-7247726923190001664-whqy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

The Shift from System to Individual in Safety Approaches

I found these extracts interesting from Foundations of Safety Science – summarising some key developments and interpretations from over a century of safety-scientific approaches. They observe that despite a myriad of approaches, and developments, “almost every approach seems to end up reverting, one way or another, to the people who work in that system”. As… Continue reading The Shift from System to Individual in Safety Approaches