tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post6755035160319482008..comments2022-12-03T19:22:46.911-08:00Comments on Safetymatters: Safety culture information, analysis and management: Safety Culture “State of the Art” in 2002 per NUREG-1756Bob Cudlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08502712287881656493noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post-56343166765286516872015-05-29T09:03:07.390-07:002015-05-29T09:03:07.390-07:00Has safety culture been a red herring that distrac...Has safety culture been a red herring that distracted the industry from its failure to display competence, compliance, integrity, and transparency?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post-8171697773194728062015-05-29T08:26:26.564-07:002015-05-29T08:26:26.564-07:00I don’t believe “safety culture” is going away any...I don’t believe “safety culture” is going away anytime soon; it’s just too useful. In general applications, it’s an easy way for politicians, critics and the media to point out and communicate a plausible cause for a wide range of accidents, incidents, lapses, disasters and other bad outcomes that emerge from organizational activity. In the nuclear industry, it’s a way for the NRC to implicitly evaluate and squeeze licensee management in the absence of specific regulations. Lewis Connerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08283295941018353006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post-57149604174781531552015-05-27T07:09:01.718-07:002015-05-27T07:09:01.718-07:00Is Safety Culture fading into the background with ...Is Safety Culture fading into the background with other temporary notions that have their day in the sun and then become historical curiosities? <br /><br />Will safety culture be seen as a red herring that distracted the industry from its failure to display competence, compliance, integrity, and transparency?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post-37463883049046529322015-05-26T11:03:35.744-07:002015-05-26T11:03:35.744-07:00Lew,
Thanks for bring forward this still signific...Lew,<br /><br />Thanks for bring forward this still significant document. I wish that I felt celebratory about the progress made in the institutionalization of a just and whole-risk competent cultural practice in either the Global or US National Nuclear Energy Enterprise - that I'm not able to muster.<br /><br />In this document considerable attention is given to INSAG and particularly INSAG-4. To my reading a proper attention to INSAG-4 would directly engage the roles, duties, and incentives to prudent risk-reckoning of those senior managers and executives; those whom you accurately point out are still not given appropriate weighting in the scheme of nuclear safety culture expectations as those have unfolded since 2002.<br /><br />In the NUREG this is what appears in the first reference to the contribution of top management:<br /><br />"Requirements imposed on managers include providing clear lines of responsibility and authority, defining and controlling work practices, ensuring appropriate qualifications and adequate training for staff, and providing a system of rewards and sanctions that promotes good safety practices." (p.6)<br /><br />This is "requirements/compliance-speak." In this critical summary there is a sort of standard Reg Guide recitation of expectations; it is devoid of any explicit emphasis on the non-delegable Duty of Ultimate Care that executives and those who establish their incentives carry toward prevention of the Fukushima Sea Wall type tragedy and leadership fiasco (from IAEA on down).<br /><br />In practice JN Sorenson, the Report's author, it appears to me, ultimately remains captive of his prior experience writing similar over-arching reports for NRC audiences; I infer from your disclosure that he has worked for NRC, or at least in licensing practice, for a long time. That frame invariably sees the Commission at the top of a Do Safety hierarchy which is steadfast to this day in relying primarily upon post-event examinations as justification to take a firm position on a licensee's overall Duty of Care.<br /><br />This report, and all the US hoopla regarding NSC since its publication, has hewn to the artificial division of responsibility between the two aspects of Whole Performance - Yield on Societal investment (primarily via Production of Electricity) and Yield on Protection from unacceptable adverse Societal consequences (primarily determined by license development and compliance therewith). <br /><br />As you've often indicated the portfolio of risks for which licensee directors and executives must exercise due care under their basic corporate fiduciary accountabilities is much broader than those addressed in the FSAR. <br /><br />I've no difficulty coming to the conclusion that the INSAG-4 emphasis on effective issues management would lead to an encompassing suite of Whole Performance indicators, including ones indicative of how carefully the balance is being tended between Production and Protection specific risks. NRC's exaggerated confusion about the difference between decision-making autonomy and independence from integrated performance messiness is the chief barrier here.<br /><br />Given the amount of solid study that has been conducted by the authors frequently highlighted in Safety Matters, it sure would be nice if this report were to be updated and that the investigation be done by persons with more distributed credentials - or we could just all carefully read the reports of the Columbia Accident Investigation, that of Deepwater Horizon, or the Japanese Diet's NAIC Report.<br /><br />Bill Mullinsnoreply@blogger.com