Defining and Assessing Safety Culture in High Reliability Systems

Gordon, R. P. E. (1998). The contribution of human factors to accidents in the offshore oil
industry. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 61, 95-108.
Literature on human errors, human factors, and how they contribute to accidents in the offshore
oil industry is reviewed. Based on the analysis of 25 accident reporting forms from offshore oil
companies in the UK sector of the North Sea, an improved framework of accident reporting
forms is proposed. This framework uses human error categories to determine the immediate
cause of the accidents, and human factors categories to determine the underlying causes of the
accidents. Human errors are defined in terms of the type of activity that is being performed (skill,
rule, or knowledge based). Skill based slips and lapses include “action” and “checking”, rule
based mistakes include “retrieval” and “transmission”, and knowledge based mistakes include
“diagnostic” and “decision” errors. Human factors consist of three main categories:
organizational factors which include company policies, company standards, systems and
produces; group factors which include management weaknesses, supervision and crew factors;
and individual factors which include competence, stress and motivation. Also, the methods by
which accidents could be reduced is discussed by focusing on the human factors, such as
feedback from accident reporting in the oil industry, auditing of unsafe acts and latent failures.
Gordon, R., Flin, R., Mearns, K., & Fleming, M. T. (1996). Assessing the human factors
causes of accidents in the offshore oil industry. Paper presented at the Third International
Conference on Health, Safety and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and
Production. New Orleans, LA.
The importance of human factors in industrial safety and the role of human factors in reduction
of accidents were discussed. Human factors codes in high reliability industries such as the
nuclear, mining and marine were reviewed. Based on a review of the current accident coding
systems used by 30 offshore oil operating and contracting companies in the UK, a more
comprehensive human factor coding category for accident reporting systems was presented. This
coding system includes three main themes:
(1) Organizational/management factors, which include company policies and standards and
management weaknesses,
(2) Job factors, which include supervision and task, and
(3) Personal factors, which include capability, knowledge/skill, stress, and improper motivation.
This coding system is intended to be used for accident reporting, safety training and for raising
awareness of the human factors causes of accidents.
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