Final thoughts

The four investigated subcomponents of safety culture is not the final product itself, but work as stepping-stones in the direction of being a safety culture. As Reason (1997) highlights, safety culture is not something you can ‘have’, but something an organization ‘is’. The identified facilitating and inhibiting factors in this study make it possible to say something about the state of safety culture developed at the facility.

This is because in order to be a safety culture, the facility must first of all have the four subcomponents.

First of all, they do have established the four subcomponents. The facilitating factors exceed the inhibiting ones particularly within the reporting and just culture. It is important to remind that the reporting and just culture constitutes the main foundation of the safety culture, and as illustrated above there is a great deal of focus on both of them within the facility. However, the four subcomponents also have room for

improvement when inhibiting and mixed factors are taken in consideration. Within the reporting culture the partially complex reporting forms, postponement of closing reports and lacking feedback were perceived as inadequate. Still, these are factors that can be corrected without requiring an overwhelming amount of resources. The

management are aware of them and have already taken action directed at improving the feedback. It was mentioned that the personnel’s training to follow reports in SAP might be included in the monthly HSE meetings in future.

The just culture is already well established among the operative personnel and management. However, some considerations have to be made in relation to the fact that everyone was so certain that under-reporting happened. As previously discussed, it can be a matter of losing credibility in the long run if reprisals are not used.

Compared to the reporting culture, this is not a matter of directly improving already established measures and practices, but rather changes in the way of thinking.

Campaigns were previously discussed as positive contributors to reporting and just culture (within section 5.3.1 and 5.3.2). The management can then highlight under-reporting more through means as campaigns, or in form of some sort of reprisals as Reason (1997) highlights as necessary in some situations. Under-reporting is not necessarily a huge problem in itself if the minor issues are the only ones not reported.

However, the reality may be more challenging, especially if the operative personnel also neglect reporting more severe incidents that put themselves and colleagues in danger.

The sometimes lack of including operative personnel’s expertise within the flexible culture does not only require little changes in the way of thinking, but it also offers an opportunity to save money on expenses within the facility if improved. Safety shall be the most essential thing, but throwing out equipment that is still safe to use do not improve the level of safety. Asking the operative personnel more about equipment that is safe to use or not, might save resources that can instead be redirected and invested in the inadequacies found in the other subcomponents.

Within the learning culture there is lacking transfer of experience between the different workshops. By making the already implemented and functioning corrective measures more transparent, much can probably be gained. The workshops can in this manner “anticipate” the incidents before experiencing themselves and have similar measures already implemented to prevent and/or counteract them if developing.

According to Reason (1997) the SIS provides a valuable ability to sustain an intelligent awareness in the absence of frequent hazardous incidents. Thus, if the workshops can easily find previous incidents and related measures registered in the SIS, they will be proactively aware.

If the aforementioned inhibiting factors are improved they can in the next instance contribute to the effectiveness of the SIS. However, in the same moment as

improvements are implemented, new weaknesses may be developing. This illustrates the necessity of constantly monitoring the different conditions in the facility through means as SISs. Safety culture and SISs are similar this way: as an organization you never reach the finish line, but keep going towards it.

Reason (1998) highlights that informed cultures i.e. safety cultures are characterized by cautious personnel within all of an organization’s levels that look for potential hazards. It is rather difficult due to the scope of this thesis to speak about the facility in total, however the informants in this thesis were working at the facility’s different levels (operative personnel, line-management, management). All the informants had it in the back of their heads that the preventive safety work was first priority. These attitudes have therefore to some degree reflected the established cautiousness within the facility: First facilitated by safety measures (section 5.3) leading to thinking and believing, affecting the SIS both positively and negatively (section 5.4).

Chapter 6. Conclusion

In this chapter conclusions are provided for each research question, before presenting issues for future research.

With the help of theories related to safety information systems and safety culture I have been able to analyse data collected through seven qualitative interviews and the facility’s system management documents. Based upon my findings, the following conclusions can be made: