Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA): a bibliometric and patents analysis

Abstract

The Systemic Theoretical Process Analysis (STPA) model is used for hazard analysis and accident prevention, based on systemic thinking and the identification of causal scenarios, created by Professor Nancy Leveson of the Institute of Technology of Massachusetts (MIT). The purpose of this article is to perform a bibliometric and patent analysis of the STPA model. Since bibliometry is an important tool in the analysis of scientific production, this method is used as a descriptive statistic, for the purposes of this study, the concepts of Goffman's Epidemic Theory were highlighted, under a mainly qualitative analysis, for a study of decline and ascent scientific method. For the bibliometric analysis, the main page of Professor Nancy Leveson was used in MIT's Web site, besides the Web of Science, Mendeley, ResearchGate, Village of Engineering and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). Aiming to cover the patents analysis it was used the Derwent, IHS and Orbit research bases. Defining as search term “Analysis of the Theoretical Process of Systems” and “STPA”, searched in the title, abstract and keywords. A total of 171 publications (1990 to 2017) were found, with 89 specific references of the STPA model (2002 to 2017), addressing several subjects such as: definitions, steps, complements to the model, areas of application and use of the model with another risk analysis tool. At the end of this article are highlighted the main works of the STPA model, tools of support and analysis, serving as base and favoring future works.