Development of a functional model which integrates human factors, safety management systems and wider organisational issues

The UK Health and Safety Executive's Hazardous Installations Directorate (HID) has specialist inspectors who make up a team that support the assessment and inspection of major hazard chemical sites covered by the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH). This paper describes preparatory groundwork for the development of a practical holistic model to help key stakeholders (inspectors, chemical companies) understand how human factors, safety management systems and wider organisational issues fit together. The process was to break down the three areas into simpler components (taxonomy) and to use these smaller components as building blocks in an integrated reconstruction. To guide the reconstruction for the major hazard context, the taxonomy was used to analyse a small sample of major chemical accidents. The results were used to look for logical patterns of associations which could form a basis from which to develop further guiding principles of integration. The idea is that, once identified, the patterns can be used in the applied contexts of inspection and auditing. If the patterns can be found in practice they can be used to identify weaknesses that could initiate major accidents. Similarly, the patterns can be used to understand accident causation during accident investigations. The paper describes the key concepts and the development process. The proposed model derived during this work has not yet been validated. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.