Reports at IRS

2009-03-09

Most of the results from IRS are published in Swedish, but some reports are also written in English. Some example are given below.

	=> Complete report is available - - Titel etc	Year/pages
	Dimensions in safety indicators. Safety Science 47 (2009) pp 481-482	2009/3
	Analysis of safety functions and barriers in accidents. Safety Science 47 (2009) pp 353–363	2009 / 20
	Relationships between accident investigations, risk analysis, and safety management. Journal of Hazardous Materials, Vol. 111 (2004) pp 13-19	2004 / 7
	Analysing Safety Functions and Barriers – Experiences from Different Industrial Sectors. Proceedings of ESREL 2004.	2004 / 10
	Safety Functions in Railways - a Structural Analysis of Safety Rules. Proceedings of ESREL 2004	2004 / 6
	Swedish case study -Safety Rule Management in Railways. Contribution to WP2.8 of SAMRAIL. IRS report.	2004 / 21
	Assessing safety functions – results from a case study at an industrial workplace. Safety Science, Vol. 41, Issue 8, pp 701-720.	2003 / 20
	Investigation of barriers and safety functions related to accidents. Procedings ESREL 2003.	2003 / 8
-	Safety analysis - Principles and practice in occupational safety. Book published by Francis & Taylor, a second extended edition.	2001 /320
	Alternative approaches to risk evaluation. Proceedings of Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries, 2001.	2001 / 8
	Safety management at small workplaces - on dissemination and use of information. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Occupational Risk Prevention. Spain, 2000.	2000 / 7
	Safety, health and environment in small process plants – results from a European survey. Journal of Safety Research, vol. 31, no 2 pp. 71-80, 2000. (From the SPASE project)	2000 / 10
	Assessment of safety functions at an industrial workplace - a case study. Procedings ESREL 2000.	2000 / 6
	On the modelling and characterisation of safety functions. Proceedings ESREL'99. Balkema, Rotterdam, 1459-1462.	1999 / 4
	Co-operative Nordic risk research - Project report	1999 / 71
	Safety barriers and safety functions - a comparison of different applications. Proceedings Society for Risk Analysis - Europe, 1998	1998 / 3
-	Integrated Safety Management in Industry - a Survey of Nordic research. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Denmark	1997 / 280
	Safety management - an essential Nordic research area. Nordic Labour Journal 2 / 1997.	1997 / 3
-	Safety, Health and Environment issues in small European chemical plants. Report from the SPASE project	1997 / 185
-	Quality of risk management - an evaluation problem. In Renn, O. (ed.) Risk Analysis and Management in a Global Economy.1997	1997 / 10
-	Approaches to accident prevention - a comparative study of eleven Swedish authorities. Safety Science, vol. 21, 1995.	1995 / 12
-	On criteria for assessing the quality of safety and health management. Proceedings ESREL '95.	1995 / 10

 

    Relationships between accident investigations, risk analysis, and safety management.
Harms-Ringdahl L 2004.  Journal of Hazardous Materials, Volume 111 (pp 13-19) 2004.
Abstract  Several different approaches to achieve safety are in common use, and examples are Accident investigations, Risk analysis, and Safety management systems. The meaning of these concepts and their practical applications vary quite a lot, which might cause confusion. A summary of definitions is presented. A general comparison is made of application areas and methodology. A proposal is made how to indi­cate parameters of variation. At one end of the scale there are organisations, which are highly organised in respect to safety. At the other end are small companies with informal safety routines.

Although the three concepts differ in a number of respects, there are many links between them which is illustrated in a model. A number of relations have been described mainly concerned with more advanced organisations. Behind the practical safety work, there are varying sets of more or less explicit explanations and theories on safety and accident causation. Depending on the theory applied, the relations between approaches can be more or less clear and essential.

Safety management at small workplaces - on dissemination and use of information
Harms-Ringdahl L. Proceedings 1st International Conference on Occupational Risk Prevention. (7 pp) 2000.
The focus is on support material to improve the working conditions at small workplaces. Theory, example and recommendations are given. A short summary is available as well as the full report.

Co-operative Nordic risk research - Project report
Magnusson SE, Göransson P, Petersen K, Malmén Y, Hovden J, Harms-Ringdahl L and Akselsson R. LUCRAM, Lund (77 p.) 1999.
An investigation of needs for future research has been made, and it also proposes a number of projects where Nordic co-operation is recommended. A short summary is available as well as the full report.

Integrated Safety Management in Industry - a Survey of Nordic research
Harms-Ringdahl L., Jansson T., Kuusisto A., Malmén Y., Mostue B.A., Rasmussen B., and Ruuhilehto K. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1997, (280 pp.)
Distribution: The agents of the Council (in Sweden from CE Fritzes AB, tel. +46 8 690 90 90, fax +46 8 20 50 21). Price DKK 75:- + VAT.
An overview has been made of Nordic research in industrial safety management and adjacent areas. The data was collected from research organisations in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It reflects experiences and conclusions from research during the past decade. The enquiry has given 108 descriptions of research topics. These are classified and analysed in different respects. A summary of the report is given in the short article referred to below.

Safety management - an essential Nordic research area
Harms-Ringdahl L. Nordic Labour Journal 2 / 1997 (p.22-24).

The article summarises on three pages the results from the survey of safety management research in the Nordic countries. The article shortly reports from a seminar in Brussels in June 1997, and ends with what is the need for future safety research. The full article is available.

Safety, Health and Environment issues in small European chemical plants
Whetton C. and Schabel J. VTT Manufacturing Technology, Tampere, Finland (185 pp.), 1997. Distribution: VTT (Available in Sweden from IRS).

This is a report from the project SPASE in which IRS participates. It contains results from a questionnaire to small plant managers in five countries on their view on safety issues. The report also contains a survey on the literature on small companies, accident statistics, different kind of methodology, interviews with inspectors from the authorities and insurance companies, and a summary of legislation. 

In 1990, 96% of the EU chemical enterprises had less than 250 employees, accounted for 32% of the turnover and 27% of the employment. i.e. small plants are important in many respects. The SPASE questionnaire was distributed to 1079 small plants with less than 100 employees in Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and United Kingdom. In total, 136 answers were received. The questionnaire contained questions on the companies present performance in safety, health and environmental (SHE) management, on external relationships, ideas to improvments, and knowlege in this field. Some results are described below.

Of the companies surveyed, 32% had some form of SHE management system, but only 5% had an environmental management system. In the management system, the majority gave first priority to formal or informal procedures, while the second most important issue was educating and informing the workforce. The majority of the respondents expressed themselves confident that all major hazards at their plants had been identified. The respondents supported in general the ideas of simpler, more uniform legislation, tailored to the needs of small process plants. They also tended to favour prescriptive legislation over goal-setting. A particular complaint from both small process plant operators and interviewed inspectors was the lack of knowlege of chemicals and their hazards. The respondents of the questionnaire believe in general that they were well in compliance with regulations - an opinion that was not shared by the interviewed inspectors. Fire and its consequences were seen as a major problem by almost all plants in the survey. Most plants reported high level of confidence in their resources for SHE management, while the authorities saw lack of resources as a major problem with small process plants.

Quality of risk management - an evaluation problem.
Harms-Ringdahl L. In Renn, O. (ed.) Risk Analysis and Management in a Global Economy.1997

 The paper takes its point of departure from the question: How should management systems in the arena of health and safety be designed and evaluated? A search has been made for different kinds of criteria for establishing which features of safety systems can be regarded as recommendable or necessary. A topic of interest is that of methods for and indicators to be employed in reviewing management in the fields of safety, health and the environment.

 Especially outside the area of "major hazard" companies there seems to be a need for the further development of criteria and methods for assessment. An important aspect is that such criteria correspond with the situation of the investigated company. A suitable categorization is needed, each category being linked to specific demands. Four parameters are proposed: level of risk, kind of activity, company characteristics, and company's level of ambition.

Approaches to accident prevention - a comparative study of eleven Swedish authorities
Harms-Ringdahl L. and Ohlsson K. Safety Science, Vol. 21, 1995 (p. 51 - 63)

A comparison has been made between 11 Swedish authorities involved in accident prevention. The authorities' fields of responsibility were in industry, transportation, the environment and medical care. The aim of the investigation has been to examine approaches to and methods for the prevention of accidents. Representatives from the authorities participated in three seminars and responded to a questionnaire.

 There are several issues and problems which are of common concern to the authorities. A majority state that one of their greatest problems is to get the "object" of their surveillance to take responsibility, act in a committed manner and work systematically. Also, nearly all states that there are safety problems with computer-controlled equipment and with demands imposed on individuals, e.g. skills demands.

 At a majority of the authorities, development is in progress of methodologies to be utilized in safety matters. This applies, for example, to the investigation of accidents, surveillance and inspection, and the scrutiny of results from safety analyses. There did not seem to be any appreciable collaboration between authorities across sectoral boundaries with regard to development aimed at safety issues. However, a need for such collaboration appeared to have advantages. Only a few of the authorities gave prominence to contacts with the international scientific community as a means for improving their approaches and working methods in relation to safety.

On criteria for assessing the quality of safety and health management
Harms-Ringdahl L. In Watson I. A. and Cottam M. P. Safety and Reliability Analysis and Assessment - the Pragmatic Approach to Reducing Risk. ESREL '95. The Institute of Quality Assurance, London, 1995. (p. 751-761)

 One starting point for the study was a number of reported difficulties in the assessment of safety, health and environmental management systems. The paper takes up some aspects from a larger Swedish report. A review of the literature shows that many proposals for models and means of assessment have been made in relation to such management systems. There seems to be a need for further development of criteria and methods for assessment of safety management. These have to correspond with the situation of the investigated company and the parameters that are essential. A suitable categorization is needed, each category being linked to specific demands. Four parameters are proposed: level of risk, kind of activity, company characteristics, and company's level of ambition.

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