Assessing resilience engineering based on safety culture and managerial factors

Resilience engineering (RE) is the inherent capacity of a plant to cope with complex and unexpected events. The real challenge for RE is to recognize that complex systems are dynamic and that dynamic systems may sometimes change from a state of dynamic stability into a state of dynamic instability. This article explores RE based on safety culture indicators and managerial factors. In a plant survey we measured seven safety culture indicators and four management factors that are known to influence RE. We describe a simple survey method that can be used to identify deficiencies related to RE. For example, we found three major problems; that is, (a) poor safety training, (b) poor management of change, and (c) poor attitudes (looking for scapegoats and placing production ahead of safety).