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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Safety Culture at the World’s Premier Multi-User Spaceport

NASA’s Agency-wide Safety Culture is implemented at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) using a unique strategy due an unparalleled approach in making human spaceflight history. Kennedy Space Center, the world’s premier multi-user spaceport, enables U.S. government and commercial space access, while providing the world a resource to allow the exploration of and the ability to work in space. A consistently healthy safety culture at KSC is imperative for mission success: desired achievements, protection of space flight hardware, and ultimately, the preservation of human life requires the support of a healthy safety culture. Emphasis on the NASA Agency-wide development of Safety Culture began with the conception of the NASA Agency Safety Culture Working Group. After the devastating loss of life and mission of the Space Shuttle Colombia, a broken safety culture was identified as an organizational cause by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. Thus, the Agency Safety Culture Working Group was developed in 2009 to assess the status of the Agency’s Safety Culture, while addressing safety culture concerns at the NASA Center-level. A Five-factor model was developed to serve as the guiding principles for Safety Culture: 1) Reporting Culture, 2) Just Culture, 3) Flexible Culture, 4) Learning Culture, and 5) Engaged Culture. These five factors are included in the NASA Safety Culture logo, which was intentionally designed as a DNA double helix to prompt the permeation of safety into day-to-day work. KSC specifically implements the NASA Agency-wide Safety Culture principles in a tailored approach that is relevant to the diversity of work being performed. An emphasis is placed on the implementation to include safety at home, not exclusively at work. This emphasis is a KSC-specific element that has been intentionally added to promote a closed loop Safety Culture. To advertise the safety culture, various safety and health events are held throughout the calendar year, providing innovative speakers and engaging activities, while also promoting a wide range of curated safety initiatives. Development and continuous improvement of the KSC safety tracking database, allows for advanced tracking-to-closure, along with providing data sets used to identify areas of emphasis. Other safety initiatives rely solely on employee participation, such as the photo challenges; participants are encouraged to identify and capture themselves, coworkers, or family members participating in safe or healthy activities to share with others within the Center and at Agency levels. Fabrication of exclusive videos and graphics are utilized to advertise and inform employee of safety initiatives, upcoming safety events, and general dispersion of safety information. In addition, an anonymous Agency-wide Safety Culture Survey is advertised, administered, and analyzed at Kennedy Space Center, with the purpose of receiving basic feedback on Safety Culture perceptions to help prevent future incidents from occurring. Through these briefly identified means, and many other forms of employee engagement, Kennedy Space Center aims to maintain safety in the forefront, while creating an environment where everyone trusts that safety is a priority.

Larrin E. Moody↗
DOE OSTI2019

I Asked 30,000 People in the Nuclear Industry About Safety Culture; This is What I Learned - 19204

Organizations in the nuclear industry place a high value on maintaining the safety of the workforce and community. Some of these organizations do a better job than others when it comes to developing and sustaining a healthy safety culture. We spent six years studying nuclear organizations to better understand the factors that influence safety culture. We used mixed methods to evaluate perceptions of safety culture in these organizations including administering a valid and reliable safety culture survey, conducting one-on-one interviews with managers, and facilitating focus groups with members of the workforce. We analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data collected from more than 30,000 workers in U.S. based organizations. All of the organizations had a nuclear component to their operations. They operated nuclear reactors, processed nuclear materials, decontaminated and decommissioned buildings with radiological contamination, cleaned-up hazardous/mixed waste, and conducted basic science research and development. We talked to craft workers, technicians, engineers, scientific professionals, support personnel, production workers, supervisors and managers. We conducted extensive statistical analysis and learned that, with rare exception, there is a gap between the perceptions of managers and the workforce that they manage. Managers almost always have a more positive perception of safety culture than the people that are actually performing the work. It is not a question of whether there will be a gap; it is simply a matter of the magnitude of the gap. We also learned through exploratory factor analysis that there is one dominant factor that accounted for almost all (75%) of the variance in the perceptions of safety culture. It was the behavior of the leaders, the decisions they made, and the systems they implemented that most influenced the workforce's perception of safety culture. Personal accountability for safety accounted for 14% of the variance, communication and reporting accounted for another 6%. Everything else accounted for the remaining 5%. Management systems, decision making and behavior is the dominant factor and managers almost always have a more positive perception than the people that work for them. People that work in organizations where management exhibits positive decision-making and safety-related behaviors tend to have more positive perceptions of safety culture. Based upon these results, we developed a theory that there were a few important factors on which management could focus on if they sought to influence the safety culture in their organization. Our experience and research suggests that management often fails to recognize five root causes of employee discontent. Employees seek: - To be recognized as an individual; - To be respected; - A sense of stability; - Fairness; - To make a difference. Understanding the perceptions of the workforce is critical because perceptions influence attitudes, which contribute to behaviors that determine individual performance. An organisation's performance is simply the sum of the performance of all of the members of that organization. To change an organisation's safety culture, interventions should target management behavior and decision making for the greatest return on investment. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Panel Session 117: Panel: Operational Excellence Through a Strong Safety Culture (R9.1)

This panel focused on the what the Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors are doing to promote safety and excellence. The Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS) is crucial, but additional support provided by the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), DOE, and environmental, safety, and health (ES and H) professionals in the field are equally imperative. The panelists discussed the importance of sharing lessons learned as well as are developing performance metrics to track operational and safety successes. This panel focused on current trends in building a strong operational safety culture and will include results from recent national workshops. Safety culture is the foundation of strong operational performance. Panel discussion included best practices from industry, DOE, and US NRC and also review tools being used to measure and evaluate safety culture programs. Panelists with presentations: Strong Safety Culture Promotes Operational Excellence (Kliss McNeel, Patricia Hughes); Safety Culture (Patricia Allen); DOE Safety Culture Improvement (Julie Goeckner); Supporting Safety Culture on the Front Line (Jan Preston); Interdependence of Safety Culture and Organizational Performance (Rizwan Shah)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2019

NASA's Journey to Safety Culture

One of the organizational causes of the Shuttle Columbia mishap found by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) Report was a "Broken Safety Culture". Since its release, NASA has strived to improve its Safety Culture In 2009, the Chief of the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance asked a member of the Air Force Safety Center and of the CAIB for assistance to develop a NASA Safety Culture Program. This presentation describes the journey that NASA personnel has taken developing a NASA Safety Culture Program to "repair" its Safety Culture.

Dillinger, Tracy↗
DOE OSTI2023

Importance of a Safety Culture

Objectives: By the end of this offering, participants will be able to: Identify what does and does not define culture; Specify the main drivers of why we need a Nuclear Safety Culture; Detail the primary contributors to LANL's Nuclear Safety Culture history; Explain how LANL's values, behaviors, and actions demonstrate our commitment to a Nuclear Safety Culture; Indicate at least one new piece of knowledge as a result of this course.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
NASA NTRS1996

Enhancing the Flight Safety Culture Through Training

In the 1970's, flight safety professionals became profoundly concerned about the prevalence of crew-caused accidents and incidents, and the role of human error in flight operations. As result, they initiated a change in the flight safety culture which has grown to significant proportions today. At the heart of the evolution were crew concepts such as flightdeck management, crew coordination, and cockpit resource management, concepts which seemed to target critical deficiencies. In themselves, the concepts were not new but their incorporation into training as a direct means of changing the flight safety culture was an untried, almost 'grassroots' approach. The targeted crew concepts and skills were not an integral part of the typical training program; the methods, curriculum, media, and even course content itself, would have to be developed and implemented from the bottom up. A familiar truism in the pilot culture is that you should 'Train the way you fly; Fly the way you train'. In short, training was expected to provide the pilot with practical operational skills that were consistent with the performance standards they were required to maintain and the operational demands they met on a daily basis. In short, one could not simply command crews to use good CRM; one would have to research and define these skills operationally as well as develop and implement a consistent and effective training program. Furthermore, one would need active support and collaboration among the research, industry and government communities in order to ensure acceptance and continued commitment. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Kanki, Barbara G.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Risk Tolerance and Safety Culture: Minimizing the Risk of Catastrophe by Bringing the Lessons of Space Home

The Johnson Space Center has pursued integrating safety culture and risk management practices and techniques throughout a large organization with an extraordinarily diverse mission. Past mission and institutional failures have been used to inform NASA's safety culture and a implement a uniform risk management environment. Basics from the loss prevention industry have influenced NASA's approach to sustaining its unique, yet aging, infrastructure. Lessons learned at NASA can augment and enhance occupational safety, health and risk management capabilities within hazardous industries. By focusing on risk informed decision-making, building a pervasive safety culture, and accommodating human factors, NASA's safety capabilities have been specifically developed to minimize the risk of loss of life and loss of mission.

Mishap↗
NASA NTRS1991

Rebuilding a safety culture

The development of a culture of safety and NASA since the Challenger accident is reviewed. The technical elements of the strengthened NASA safety program are described, including problem reporting, risk/assessment/risk management, operational safety, and safety assurance are addressed. Future directions in the development of safety are considered.

Rodney, George A.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Improving the Safety Culture by Strengthening Leadership Skills - 16563

As a primary contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CH2M) is managing a team of approximately 1,400 employees at the Hanford Site in Southeast Washington. The work on this 10-year, $5.7 billion contract ranges from design and construction to decommissioning and cleanup. In 2013, CH2M began the second half of its contract and expanded its leadership development program to focus on succession planning and strengthening the leadership skills of its employees. The goal is to create and sustain qualified leaders to lead the Hanford cleanup mission today and into the future. CH2M launched the Leadership Impact Initiative, a training program modeled from best practices used at other CH2M projects, including the Idaho Cleanup Project. Based on the results of a CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company site-wide safety culture survey, the company developed an improvement strategy focused on leadership development with emphasis on the front-line leadership. The strategy stresses core leadership principles and skill development to help managers more effectively engage the workforce. The two-day workshop gives employees the opportunity to build leadership on the job in an audience of their peers. CH2M expanded the workshops to include employees from all levels of the organization, including bargaining unit employees. The workshops are reinforced at quarterly all-manager meetings, communications among team members and regular sharing of lessons learned and experiences in the field. The Leadership Impact Initiative advances CH2M's vision of quality leadership and project delivery anchored by health and safety performance excellence. Since 2013, CH2M hosted more than 25 Leadership Impact Initiative workshops, reaching approximately 500 participants. Meanwhile, the company achieved the best safety record since the start of its contract, and results from its 2015 safety culture survey show improvements in the safety climate. A DOE assessment of the CH2M worker health and safety culture for the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) found the workshop was a contributing factor to the contractor achieving VPP Star and VPP Star of Excellence Status. This paper summarizes the strategy behind the leadership development program, the outcomes and its relevance for other companies, particularly those on DOE Environmental Management decommissioning projects. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS2018

Risk Tolerance and Safety Culture: Minimizing the Risk of Catastrophe by Bringing the Lessons of Space Home

The Johnson Space Center has pursued integrating risk management practices and techniques throughout a large organization with an extraordinarily diverse mission. Past mission and institutional failures have been used to inform NASA's safety culture and a implement a uniform risk management environment. Basics from the loss prevention industry have influenced NASA's approach to sustaining its unique, yet aging, infrastructure. Lessons learned at NASA can augment and enhance occupational safety, health and risk management capabilities within hazardous industries. By focusing on risk informed decision-making, building a pervasive safety culture, and accommodating human factors, NASA's safety capabilities have been specifically developed to minimize the risk of loss of life and loss of mission.

Loyd, David↗
NASA NTRS2016

AFRC Safety Culture

To provide an exchange of ideas with Allied Countries for bettering aviation safety and culture.

culture↗
NASA NTRS2005

Use of New Communication Technologies to Change NASA Safety Culture: Incorporating the Use of Blogs as a Fundamental Communications Tool

The purpose of this paper is to explore an innovative approach to culture change at NASA that goes beyond reorganizations, management training, and a renewed emphasis on safety. Over the last five years, a technological social revolution has been emerging from the internet. Blogs (aka web logs) are transforming traditional communication and information sharing outlets away from established information sources such as the media. The Blogosphere has grown from zero blogs in 1999 to approximately 4.5 million as of November 2004 and is expected to double in 2005. Blogs have demonstrated incredible effectiveness and efficiency with regards to affecting major military and political events. Consequently, NASA should embrace the new information paradigm presented by blogging. NASA can derive exceptional benefits from the new technology as follows: 1) Personal blogs can overcome the silent safety culture by giving voice to concerns or questions that are not well understood or seemingly inconsequential to the NASA community at-large without the pressure of formally raising a potential false alarm. Since blogs can be open to Agency-wide participation, an incredible amount of resources from an extensive pool of experience can focus on a single issue, concern, or problem and quickly vetted, discussed and assessed for feasibility, significance, and criticality. The speed for which this could be obtained cannot be matched through any other process or procedure currently in use. 2) Through official NASA established blogs, lessons learned can be a real-time two way process that is formed and implemented from the ground level. Data mining of official NASA blogs and personal blogs of NASA personnel can identify hot button issues and concerns to senior management. 3) NASA blogs could function as a natural ombudsman for the NASA community. Through the recognition of issues being voiced by the community and taking a proactive stance on those issues, credibility within NASA Management can be restored. For NASA to harness the capabilities of blogs, NASA must develop an Agency-wide policy on blogging to encourage use and provide guidance. This policy should describe basic rules of conduct and content as well as a policy of non-retribution and/or anonymity. The Agency must provide sever space within their firewalls, provide appropriate software tools, and promote blogs in newsletters and official websites. By embracing the use of blogs, a potential pool of 19,000 experts could be available to address each posted safety issue, concern, problem, or question. Blogs could result in real NASA culture change.

Huls, Dale thomas↗
DOE OSTI2016

Division 1000 Safety Culture [Slides]

Division-wide email survey conducted in May. Survey questions chosen to provide some connection to the 2014 DuPont Safety Perception Survey and address key components of a safety culture.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
NASA NTRS2018

Understanding Risk Tolerance and Building an Effective Safety Culture

Estimates range from 65-90 percent of catastrophic mishaps are due to human error. NASA's human factors-related mishaps causes are estimated at approximately 75 percent. As much as we'd like to error-proof our work environment, even the most automated and complex technical endeavors require human interaction... and are vulnerable to human frailty. Industry and government are focusing not only on human factors integration into hazardous work environments, but also looking for practical approaches to cultivating a strong Safety Culture that diminishes risk. Industry and government organizations have recognized the value of monitoring leading indicators to identify potential risk vulnerabilities. NASA has adapted this approach to assess risk controls associated with hazardous, critical, and complex facilities. NASA's facility risk assessments integrate commercial loss control, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) Process Safety, API (American Petroleum Institute) Performance Indicator Standard, and NASA Operational Readiness Inspection concepts to identify risk control vulnerabilities.

Loyd, David↗
NASA NTRS2010

Developing Expert Teams with a Strong Safety Culture

Would you like to lead a world renowned team that draws out all the talents and expertise of its members and consistently out performs all others in the industry? Ever wonder why so many organizations fail to truly learn from past mistakes only to repeat the same ones at a later date? Are you a program/project manager or team member in a high-risk organization where the decisions made often carry the highest of consequences? Leadership, communication, team building, critical decision-making and continuous team improvement skills and behaviors are mere talking points without the attitudes, commitment and strategies necessary to make them the very fabric of a team. Developing Expert Teams with a Strong Safety Culture, will provide you with proven knowledge and strategies to take your team soaring to heights you may have not thought possible. A myriad of teams have applied these strategies and techniques within their organization team environments: military and commercial aviation, astronaut flight crews, Shuttle flight controllers, members of the Space Shuttle Program Mission Management Team, air traffic controllers, nuclear power control teams, surgical teams, and the fire service report having spectacular success. Many industry leaders are beginning to realize that although the circumstances and environments of these teams may differ greatly to their own, the core elements, governing principles and dynamics involved in managing and building a stellar safety conscious team remain identical.

Rogers, David G.↗
DOE OSTI2018

2017 ADEM SSIP Safety Culture 2

The overall purpose of the 2017 SSIP is to improve operational performance by fostering employee involvement in the development of solutions to issues that are important to the organization. While the cornerstone mechanism of our employee involvement is the Worker Safety and Security Teams (WSSTs); active guidance by management is also a key to success.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗