Total safety management: An approach to improving safety culture

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:5824203

Blush, S M ^[1]

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1. Department of Energy, Washington, DC (United States)

A little over 4 yr ago, Admiral James D. Watkins became Secretary of Energy. President Bush, who had appointed him, informed Watkins that his principal task would be to clean up the nuclear weapons complex and put the US Department of Energy (DOE) back in the business of producing tritium for the nation's nuclear deterrent. Watkins recognized that in order to achieve these objectives, he would have to substantially improve the DOE's safety culture. Safety culture is a relatively new term. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) used it in a 1986 report on the root causes of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. In 1990, the IAEA's International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group issued a document focusing directly on safety culture. It provides guidelines to the international nuclear community for measuring the effectiveness of safety culture in nuclear organizations. Safety culture has two principal aspects: an organizational framework conducive to safety and the necessary organizational and individual attitudes that promote safety. These obviously go hand in hand. An organization must create the right framework to foster the right attitudes, but individuals must have the right attitudes to create the organizational framework that will support a good safety culture. The difficulty in developing such a synergistic relationship suggests that achieving and sustaining a strong safety culture is not easy, particularly in an organization whose safety culture is in serious disrepair.

• OSTI ID: 5824203
• Report Number(s): CONF-930601-; CODEN: TANSAO
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 68; Conference: American Nuclear Society (ANS) annual meeting, San Diego, CA (United States), 20-24 Jun 1993; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS
ATTITUDES
SAFETY
US DOE
BEHAVIOR
HUMAN FACTORS
HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
MANAGEMENT
PERSONNEL
ANIMALS
ENGINEERING
MAMMALS
MAN
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
PRIMATES
US ORGANIZATIONS
VERTEBRATES
054000* - Nuclear Fuels- Health & Safety
220900 - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Reactor Safety
220600 - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Research
Test & Experimental Reactors