Human factors in safety and business management

Abstract

Human factors in safety is concerned with all those factors that influence people and their behaviour in safety-critical situations. In aviation these are, for example, environmental factors in the cockpit, organisational factors such as shift work, human characteristics such as ability and motivation of staff. Careful consideration of human factors is necessary to improve health and safety at work by optimising the interaction of humans with their technical and social (team, supervisor) work environment. This provides considerable benefits for business by increasing efficiency and by preventing incidents/accidents. The aim of this paper is to suggest management tools for this purpose. Management tools such as balanced scorecards (BSC) are widespread instruments and also well known in aviation organisations. Only a few aviation organisations utilise management tools for human factors although they are the most important conditions in the safety management systems of aviation organisations. One reason for this is that human factors are difficult to measure and therefore also difficult to manage. Studies in other domains, such as workplace health promotion, indicate that BSC-based tools are useful for human factor management. Their mission is to develop a set of indicators that are sensitive to organisational performance and help identify driving forces as well as bottlenecks. Another tool presented in this paper is the Human Resources Performance Model (HPM). HPM facilitates the integrative assessment of human factors programmes on the basis of a systematic performance analysis of the whole system. Cause-effect relationships between system elements are defined in process models in a first step and validated empirically in a second step. Thus, a specific representation of the performance processes is developed, which ranges from individual behaviour to system performance. HPM is more analytic than BSC-based tools because HPM also asks why a certain factor is facilitating or obstructing success. A significant need for research and development is seen here because human factors are of increasing importance for organisational success. This paper suggests integrating human factors in safety management of aviation businesses - a top-ranking partner of technology and finance - and managing it with professional tools. The tools HPM and BSC were identified as potentially useful for this purpose. They were successfully applied in case studies briefly presented in this paper. In terms of specific safety-steering tools in the aviation industry, further elaboration and empirical study is crucial. Statement of Relevance: The importance of human factors is recognised by operators at the sharp end of aviation, where flights are conducted or coordinated. At the blunt end, measurement tools are needed to manage operational resources.

Occupational Health and Safety Management in Organizations: A Review

“…2009; CCH Australia Limited 2009; Cox and Cox 1996; Ellis 2001; Fuller and Vassie 2004; Geller 1998; Grimaldi and Simonds 1989; Hammer 1985; McSween 1995; Mol 2003; Montero et al . 2009; Petersen 1978, 1996; Roughton and Mercurio 2002; Vogt et al . 2010).…”

“…It is populated largely by textbooks directed at students and practitioners in OHS. Consequently, they are not empirically grounded representations of what constitutes OHS management, nor are they conceptualizations that are verified or validated through systematic field study; rather, they are their respective authors' attempts at ordering concepts, tools, techniques, technologies and insights (for example, Archer et al 2009;CCH Australia Limited 2009;Cox and Cox 1996;Ellis 2001;Fuller and Vassie 2004;Geller 1998;Grimaldi and Simonds 1989;Hammer 1985;McSween 1995;Mol 2003;Montero et al 2009;Petersen 1978Petersen , 1996Roughton and Mercurio 2002;Vogt et al 2010). This is also the domain of government prescriptions, codes of practice and advisory pamphlets (such as those put out by the NSW and Victorian Workcover authorities in Australia and the Health and Safety Executive in the UK); national standards promulgated by national bodies ( Petersen (1978) provides a set of safety management recipes that address safety concepts, managing safety performance, measuring safety performance, motivating safety performance, plus additional safety techniques.…”

De-Icing of aircraft: Incorporating business risks and occupational health and safety

“…Several regulatory organizations including the ICAO and IHST are nevertheless promoting proactive safe design (Rashid and Braithwaite [8]). We therefore propose that to be sustainable and balance performance criteria with worker wellbeing, the airliner maintenance sector and in particular de-icing operations should aim for systemic design throughout their activity lifecycles.…”

“…Maintenance activities represent 10-15% of airline budgets, two thirds of which are for labor costs in the case of heavy maintenance burdens (McFadden and Worrells 2012 [11]). In the case of commercial flight, the proportion of accidents related to airliner maintenance is 12-20% (Rashid et al [8]). In Europe, 10-20% of workplace accidents and 10-15% of deaths in all industrial sectors are associated with maintenance activities (EU-OSHA [12]).…”

“…Boeing estimates that 36,000 passenger aircraft will be in service in 2025 (Boeing [7]). One hour of flight requires 12 hours of aircraft maintenance (Rashid et al [8]). A quadratic relationship exists between air traffic volume and accident rate, which explains the recommendations to increase safety levels by a factor of three by 2020 and by ten on the long term if air traffic should triple (Vogt et al [9]).…”