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Safety science - a primer (ConFoo 2023)

Michiel Rook
February 22, 2023

Safety science - a primer (ConFoo 2023)

Incidents are a fact of life, an inevitable cost of doing business. But they can teach us a lot about our organizations and our work.

How we look at & learn from incidents has been evolving over the past decades, both in- and outside our industry.

Join me to learn about some of the most important current themes and theories in incident investigation and safety science. Then I will discuss some pointers that you can apply in your own organization. And don’t forget to bring your notebook, I’ll be sharing plenty of literature tips!

Michiel Rook

February 22, 2023
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  1. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine "The change of motion of an object is

    proportional to the force impressed; and is made in the direction... in which the force is impressed."
  2. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “What is the cause of the accident? This

    question is just as bizarre as asking what the cause is of not having an accident.” S I D N E Y D E K K E R
  3. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine TIGHT COUPLING NO DELAYS & SLACK RESPONSIBILITIES CLEARLY

    STATED ONE METHOD TO REACH GOAL COMPLEX SYSTEM UNFAMILIAR FEEDBACK LOOPS NON-LINEAR LIMITED UNDERSTANDING FAILURES NOT ISOLATED
  4. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “A preliminary FAA review of last week’s outage

    of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system determined that contract personnel unintentionally deleted fi les while working to correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database” "According to the RBQ, a mechanic carried out a simple visual inspection of the lifts after a malfunction message — contrary to the manufacturer's guidelines — and authorized a restart."
  5. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “There is almost no human action or decision

    that cannot be made to look fl awed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight.” S I D N E Y D E K K E R
  6. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “People do things that make sense to them,

    given their goals, understanding of the situation and focus of attention at that time.” E U R O C O N T R O L
  7. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine Events Leading Up to the False Alert 3

    Time Events 0805 • HI-EMA’s midnight shift supervisor begins a no-notice ballistic missile defense drill at a shift change by placing a call, pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command, to the day shift warning officers. • The midnight shift supervisor plays a recording over the phone that properly includes the drill language “EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE,” but also erroneously contains the text of an EAS message for a live ballistic missile alert, including the language, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” The recording does not follow the script contained in HI-EMA’s standard operating procedure for this drill. • The day shift warning officers receive this recorded message on speakerphone. • While other warning officers understand that this is a drill, the warning officer at the alert origination terminal claimed to believe, in a written statement provided to HI- EMA, that this was a real emergency, not a drill. 0807 • This day shift warning officer responds, as trained for a real event, by transmitting a live incoming ballistic missile alert to the State of Hawaii. • In doing so, the day shift warning officer selects the template for a live alert from a drop-down menu, and clicks “yes” in response to a prompt that reads, “Are you sure that you want to send this Alert?” Preliminary Report: Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s January 13, 2018 False Ballistic Missile Alert.
  8. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine Preliminary Report: Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s January 13,

    2018 False Ballistic Missile Alert. Events After the False Alert 4 Time Events 0808 • Day shift warning officer receives false WEA on mobile device 0809 • HI-EMA notifies Hawaii Governor of false alert 0810 • HI-EMA to U.S. Pacific Command and Honolulu PD: no missile launch 0812 • HI-EMA issues a cancellation, ceasing retransmission over EAS, WEA 0813 • HI-EMA begins outreach, but its phone lines become congested 0820 • HI-EMA posts on Facebook, Twitter – “NO missile threat to Hawaii” 0824 • Hawaii Governor retweets notice that there is no missile threat 0827 • HI-EMA determines that an EAS, WEA Civil Emergency Message (CEM) is the best vehicle for correction 0830 • FEMA confirms HI-EMA’s view on CEM; Hawaii Governor posts correction on Facebook 0831 • HI-EMA supervisor logs into alert system, begins to create false alert correction 0845 • HI-EMA issues correction through EAS and WEA that there is no missile threat
  9. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine Stress or stressors ‣ Stress and anxiety created

    by recent North Korea nuclear attack concerns. ‣ Drills were a recently added training exercise. ‣ Drills were administered spontaneously. ‣ Experience and training ‣ Employee was a 10-year veteran of the agency and a supervisor. ‣ Standard practice test conducted during each shift change three times a day were not yet routine enough to be predictable, but they were not entirely new. ‣ Employees had not been trained on the new FEMA software currently being used. ‣ No records maintained for employee training and to what degree. Ergonomics or HMI ‣ Interfaces had not been updated. ‣ File names were very similar with little distinction between the test missile alert and the genuine missile alert. Procedures ‣ The recording does not follow the script contained in HI-EMA’s standard operating procedure for this drill. ‣ Recorded message was incorrectly interpreted as part of an unscheduled drill. ‣ “The day-shift manager was not prepared to supervise the morning test,” the FCC said. ‣ Following standard procedures, the night-shift supervisor posing as Paci fi c Command played a recorded message to the emergency workers warning them of the fake threat. The message included the phrase “Exercise, exercise, exercise.” But the message inaccurately included the phrase “This is not a drill.” Fitness for duty ‣ Reports stated that Hawaii emergency management o ff i cials knew for years that the employee had problems performing his job. ‣ In the past, the employee in question had mistakenly believed drills for tsunami and fi re warnings were actual events. ‣ Colleagues reported not feeling comfortable working with the individual. Supervisors had counselled the employee repeatedly, yet retained him for a decade in a position that had to be renewed each year. ‣ During the drill, the employee reported that he did not hear the word “exercise” repeated six times. All of the fellow o ff i cers participating in the drill con fi rmed that they had clearly heard the word “exercise” during the drill. Work processes ‣ FEMA and HI-EMA did not have clear policies for issuing alerts. HI-EMA waited for permission to issue a second alert stating that the fi rst alert was a false alarm. According to FEMA, this was not a requirement. ‣ The agency had a vague checklist for missile alerts, allowing workers to interpret the steps they should follow di ff erently. ‣ HI-EMA Managers didn’t require a second person to sign o ff on alerts before they were sent. ‣ The agency lacked any preparation on how to correct a false warning. New computer software programs had been added to the agency’s computers but no training had been conducted to teach o ff i cers how to apply it. Human Reliability Considerations from the Hawaii Ballistic Missile Alert Event
  10. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “another clear example of how failures occur in

    complex technological systems” H E AT H E R M E D E M A , H A R O L D B L AC K M A N , K AT E RY N A SAVC H E N KO, R O N A L D B O R I N G
  11. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine "Incidents are a fact of life. 
 


    How well you respond is your choice." J I M S E V E R I N O
  12. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine "What you call 'root cause' is simply the

    place where you stop looking any further." S I D N E Y D E K K E R
  13. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine Figure 1 A causal event tree (adapted from

    ref. 21). ID, identification; IT, information technology. The problem with… Alan J. Card - The problem with '5 whys' 
 BMJ quality & safety · September 2016 DOI: 10.1136/bmjqs-2016-005849
  14. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “For every complex problem, there is an answer

    that is clear, simple, and wrong.” H . L . M E N C K E N
  15. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine H T T P S : // V

    I M EO.C O M /370 0 0 8 1 57
  16. @michieltcs #StandWithUkraine “Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the

    fi rst time.” C H ES L E Y B . S U L L E N B E R G E R