With a multi-disciplinary team involving engineers, psychologists and organizational sociologists, the Safety Excellence project team now working with BWGas to improve safety performance is bringing new insight into a very human issue: Safety Culture.
Launched in 2004, DNV’s Safety Excellence was established to help shipping companies to improve their overall safety performance through a focus on human and organisational factors. One of the tools they are using is DNV Insight, which collects and analyzes data from detailed crew and management surveys to improve safety performance at all levels in the organisation. Since then, Safety Excellence has collected more than 13,000 unique respondents from 30 different ship owners, resulting in the most comprehensive database in the industry – a valuable benchmarking tool.
Cecilie Hurlen, Senior Consultant for DNV Advisory Services says that the success of the Safety Excellence programme relies on both the quality of the data and the diverse competence the organization brings to each project. “We recognize that by creating project teams which include individuals with different skill-sets, we can improve the quality of our analyses,” she says. “DNV has always had expertise in systems, but to understand how humans interact you need people with different competencies.”
Hurlen notes that in shipping, the potential for making significant safety improvements can be found in understanding human and organisational factors and building a strong culture of safety. “Over 80 per cent of maritime accidents are caused by human and organisational error,” she says. “To help our customers improve safety performance, it is vital to understand organisational systems and human behaviour.”
Hurlen, who is part of a larger follow up study with BW Gas (Norway) first launched in 2006, says the questionnaire surveys (DNV Insight) are based on best practices from aviation and supported by extensive research in line with DNV’s Crew Resource Management (CRM) concept. “We believe by accessing in-house expertise from different disciplines, we can improve the quality of the safety information we bring to our customers,” says Hurlen. “While DNV has the most comprehensive database in the industry, it is our unique approach to analysis which adds value.”