Industrial Safety Culture - Leading Indicators and Application

摘要

It is proposed that a set of four specific subcultures, along with a management system commitment to the principles of inherent safety, can be used as leading indicators of the effectiveness of a company's safety culture. A conceptual framework for such a safety culture assessment is presented in the current paper along with explanation by means of an industrial case study - the Westray coal mine explosion, which occurred in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, Canada on May 9, 1992, killing 26 miners. Unacceptably high methane and coal dust levels, combined with many other substandard conditions and practices, contributed to the poor work environment in the mine. Ultimately, the primary root cause of the problems at Westray was the lack of concern expressed by management toward safety issues. The safety culture assessment framework proposed in the current work is used to illustrate the validity of this conclusion on accident causation.