Here are a selection of research reports, conference papers and short articles by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists on Human Factors in Safety.
Research Reports
1. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Investigation of the links between psychological ill-health, stress and safety - download - (PDF - 1.28MB - 106 pages)
Prepared by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
2. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Review of behavioural safety literature and key steps to ensure implementation success - download - (PDF - 1.49MB - 26 pages)
Prepared by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
3. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Case Studies of 4 different behavioural safety programmes - download - (PDF - 341KB - 30 pages)
Prepared by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
4. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Applying behavioural safety to wider range of behaviours, and integrating with health and safety management system - download - (PDF - 99KB - 82 pages)
Prepared by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
5. Step-Change in Safety "Changing Minds" report, based on Safety Culture Maturity® Model - link
Register as user and search publications/behaviour section for downloadable document
6. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Evaluation of HSE's Climate Survey Tool - download - (PDF - 777KB - 54 pages)
Prepared by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
7. Health and Safety Executive Research Report: Effective shift handover: a literature review - download - (PDF - 191KB - 19 pages)
Up-to-date research and best practice on how to achieve effective shift handovers.
Prepared by Ronny Lardner, Chartered Occupational Psychologist, The Keil Centre Edinburgh
Conference Papers
1. Shift handover after Buncefield - download - (PDF - 197 KB - 6 pages)
This paper by John Wilkinson and Ronny Lardner was presented at the 14th International Symposium on Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries, 12-15 May 2013 Florence, Italy and published in Chemical Engineering Transactions, Volume 31 2013.
It reviews the research and guidance on shift handover in comparable major or high hazard industries or organisations, and identifies gaps. It uses the 2005 Buncefield storage depot explosion and fires as an exemplar incident.
2. Pass it on! Revisiting Shift Handover After Buncefield - download - (PDF - 117 KB - 11 pages)
This paper by John Wilkinson and Ronny Lardner was presented at HAZARDS XXIII in Southport, UK, 12-15 November 2012..
This paper reviews the research and guidance on shift handover in the light of the findings from the 2005 Buncefield explosion and fires, compares current on- and off-shore practice and standards, and makes recommendations for the way forward. A fully published version can be ordered from the IChemE online shop.
3. Beyond bulletins and presentations: use of scenarios to learn from incidents - download - (PDF - 64 KB - 6 pages)
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/APPEA International Conference on Health, Safety, and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production held in Perth, Australia, 11–13 September 2012.
Many organisations in the process industries seek to improve how they learn and embed lessons from incidents. Yet we hear less from such organisations on trialling novel learning methods in search of better ways to learn from incidents. This paper describes a successful project that used an engaging and interactive method to help personnel learn generic lessons from previous incidents.
4. Towards a deeper level of learning from incidents: use of scenarios - download - (PDF - 70 KB - 8 pages)
This paper was presented at IChemE Hazards XXII conference, Liverpool, UK, 13-15 April 2011.
It describes an innovative project which improved the effectiveness of learning from incidents, and also offers some insights into why such learning often fails..
5. Testing the validity and reliability of a safety culture model using process and occupational safety performance data download - (PDF - 836 KB - 11 pages)
This paper, presented at IChemE's 2011 Hazards symposium, describes how a novel safety culture framework was successfully linked to better occupational and process safety performance.
6. Our Safety Culture - Our Behaviour is the Key- download - (PDF - 665KB - 8 pages)
A paper presented at the 2008 Society of Petroleum Engineers conference in Nice, France, jointly-authored by Aidan Hayes and Emily Novatsis of Woodside Energy, Australia and Ronny Lardner from The Keil Centre. Describes the development and implementation of Woodside Energy's "Our Safety Culture model", and its integration into HSE and HR mangement systems.
7. The necessity of trust and ‘creative mistrust’ for developing a safe culture - download - (PDF - 468KB - 8 pages)
This paper was presented at the IChemE Hazards XX 2008 conference in Manchester, UK. The paper examines the results of research carried out in a large maintenance organisation to examine the relationship between trust on communication and safety behaviours. It argues that trust and 'creative mistrust' are not logical opposites and are needed in equal measures to support the functioning of a safe culture. A practical model for developing trust and ‘creative mistrust’ is proposed and discussed.
8. Towards the integration of human factors root causes - download - (PDF - 121KB - 7 pages)
This paper was presented at the IChemE Loss Prevention 2007 conference in Edinburgh. It describes one of the key outcomes of a piece of research into the impact of psychological ill-health on safety - that there is a strong case for greater synergy between occupational health professionals and incident investigators in order to identify the conditions which may impact on incident occurrence as well as the psychological health of the workforce.
9. Safe Communication At Shift Handover: Setting And Implementing Standards - download - (PDF - 144KB - 14 pages)
This paper, presented at IChemE's 2006 Hazards symposium, describes a comprehensive and successful project to improve standards of shift handover at a large oil refinery
10. Mindfulness: realising the benefits - download - (PDF - 413KB - 6 pages)
This paper will be a keynote presentation at the IChemE's 2007 Loss Prevention conference. It discusses individual mindfulness and the qualities of those who exhibit it. It reflects on what needs to be provided by the organisation, including examples of useful tools, to ensure it is understood and applied and, critically, how the organisation and those who work in it should react and respond to individuals who demonstrate mindfulness in order to ensure its sustainability.
11.Personalising safety culture... - download - (PDF - 796KB - 7 pages)
This paper, to be presented at the IChemE's 2007 Loss Prevention conference, describes the development and implementation of an innovative 3-level safety behaviour model, which includes managers, supervisors and everyone in the organisation. The sets of behaviours which support a strong safety culture are defined.
12. Designing teams for safety, productivity and job satisfaction - download - (PDF - 113KB - 10 pages)
A paper written for the Society of Petroleum Engineers describing recent research and operator experience of self-managing teams in the offshore oil and gas industry.
13.Towards a Mature Safety Culture - download - (PDF - 150KB - 9 pages)
A paper presented at the Institution of Chemical Engineers 2002 conference, describing an award-winning project to develop safety culture at BP's Dalmeny and Hound Point tanker loading facilities.
14. To err is human - as case study of error prevention in process isolations - download - (PDF - 614KB - 6 pages)
This paper, presented at IChemE's 2009 Hazards symposium, describes how practical human error analysis and prevention methods were applied to a series of errors which occurred during process isolations and de-isolations on an offshore oil and gas platform.
15.Helping engineers to analyse and influence the human factors in accidents at work - download - (PDF - 63KB - 5 pages)
A paper published in Process Safety and Environmental Protection - the official journal of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering - which describes methods which have been successfully used to enhance incident investigations, and develop better recommendations to address violations, errors and safety culture deficiencies.
16. Developing Human Factors in High-Hazard Site - download- (PDF - 58KB - 7 pages)
A paper by Phil Joyner and Ronny Lardner of The Keil Centre, describing their 3-year project at BP's Grangemouth site, which developed the site's internal expertise in managing the human factors which affect health and safety. This paper was presented at the Loss Prevention 2004 conference in Prague.
Books
1. Human Factors Methods of Improving Performance in the Process Industries - click here to view
Written by the human factors sub-committee of CCPS, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Center for Chemical Process Safety, and chaired by Phil Joyner.
Short Articles by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists
1. It's All Gone Pear-Shaped - download - (PDF - 114KB - 2 pages)
How Crew Resource Management training can assist control room teams managing emergencies.
2. Safer Behaviour at Work - download - (PDF - 48KB - 3 pages)
About the psychological principles behind observation programmes which aim to modify unsafe behaviour.
3. To Err is Human... - download - (PDF - 147KB - 3 pages)
...but organisations make mistakes too. By understanding the cause of errors, accidents, incidents and near-miss investigations can be more effective.
4. When is a Risk not a Risk? - download - (PDF - 1.5MB - 3 pages)
Explores human factors aspects of risk perception.
5. Safety Culture - the Way Forward - download - (PDF - 547KB - 3 pages)
Explores current approaches to safety culture improvement.
6. Better Shift Systems - download - (PDF - 477KB - 3 pages)
There is probably no such thing as a "good" shift system. However, according to Ronny Lardner and Bob Miles, some are better than others.
7. Hints on Handovers - download - (PDF - 3.5MB - 3 pages)
Ronny Lardner reports on recent HSE research, giving helpful hints on eradicating communication errors at shift handover, illustrated by some alarming case studies.
8. Exhausted Options - the organisation of shiftwork and management of its potential effects on staff - download - (PDF - 2.2 MB - 3 pages)
This article was written with a client to capture good and bad practice in fatigue and shiftwork management, based on the client's (good) experience and on the Buncefield disaster as a bad one. It outlines key good practice areas and provides some practical recommendations for managers. This article first appeared in the September 2011 edition of SHP - www.shponline.co.uk - and was written by John Wilkinson
Magazine articles
1. Human factors analysis tools - A short article from IOSH's monthly Safety and Health Practitioner magazine, describing an award-winning project by The Keil Centre's Chartered Psychologists to investigate and influence the human factors underyling accidents at work. First published in the April 2007 issue www.shponline.co.uk - download - (PDF - 1MB - 3 pages)
2. The importance of factoring the human element into safety: A short introductory article by The Keil Centre's Ronny Lardner, and Dave Nicholls's from the UK oil and gas cross-industry safety improvement Step-Change in Safety group. The article was published in The Chemical Engineer in November 2010, and explains the "top-ten" human factors issues relevant to safety in hazardous industries, and provides a link to Step-Change's recently published human factors guidance. - download - (PDF - 320 KB - 3 pages)
Useful Links
1. PRISM project - register and join
2. European Agency for Safety and Health at Work's UK National Information Network
A variety of organisations who offer health and safety related services and information