Human Factor

 An organisation with a good safety culture is one which has managed to successfully institutionalise safety as a fundamental value of the organisation, with personnel at every level in the organisation sharing a common commitment to safety.  One of the key elements is effective support from the top levels of the organisation, for safety. It is necessary for senior management to demonstrate their commitment to safety in practical terms, not just verbally or only as long as safety is a no-cost item.  It is all very well for an organisation to commit to putting in place, for example, a safety reporting and investigation scheme but if such a scheme is not resourced properly, or if safety recommendations are not acted upon, it will be ineffective.  It is also important that such commitment to safety is long-term, and that safety initiatives are not the first items to be cut in terms of financial support when the organisation is looking for cost savings.  Safety mana...

Dissemination   is  only half of this communication.  The information is sent out and received, but no reply is given.  The message carrier sends out information, not to one individual, but many in a broadcasting system.  An example of this transmission of information is in fields of advertising, public announcements and speeches.  Both the individual engineer and the organisation in which he works have a shared responsibility to keep abreast of new information.  Good dissemination of information within an organisation forms part of  its safety culture .   Maintenance organisation will be the sender and the individual engineer will be the recipient. “Planning”, that an engineer or team of engineers need to plan the way work will be performed.  Part of this process should be checking that all information relating to the task has been  gathered and understood.  This includes checking to see if there is any inform...