http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9160-025X
The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences organised in Amsterdam (31 October – 2 November 2018) the 3rd edition of the International Cross-industry Safety Conference (ICSC) dedicated to both practical and theoretical aspects of safety. The conference, which was supported by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), functioned as a platform to share and transfer knowledge about safety within and across industry and academia.
During the first edition of ICSC in 2016, it was confirmed that there are a plethora of approaches to safety, respective models and management methods which have been proposed by academia. Also, various ‘best practices’ are applied across industry sectors and included in standards and regulations. However, although the diversity of models and approaches serves the scope of science, when it comes to practice it does not allow the establishment of a lingua franca regarding safety. ICSC 2017 brought together again academic institutions, organisations and a greater variety of industry sectors from different countries and continents.
At ICSC 2018, the presentations indicated that the gap between industry and academia has decreased; they both acknowledged the need for more systemic and systematic approaches to deal with the increasing complexity of systems. This convergence has already led to industry-industry and industry-academia collaborations for the exchange of safety-related experiences, practices and ground-breaking ideas. Geleyn Meijer (Rector of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, NL) opened the event and Stephan Berndsen (Investigation Manager at the Dutch Safety Board, NL), George Boustras (Professor in Risk Assessment at European University Cyprus and Editor-in-Chief of Safety Science, CY) and Pier Eringa (Chairman of the Board of Directors, ProRail, NL) addressed the conference as keynote speakers.
Besides the keynote speakers, 23 delegates from various industry, academia and (inter)governmental organisations delivered their presentations and discussed with the attendants a wide range of practical applications and research results. During the first day of the conference, three tutorials covered: the application of the CAST accident analysis to a mid-air collision (Simon Whiteley, Whiteley Aerospace Safety Engineering & Management Limited, UK), the Future Backwards, a cognitive edge method aiding sensemaking using an oblique approach (Friso Gosliga & Marion Kiely, Efexis, NL & UPSTREAM, IE), and an introduction to resilience engineering as one of the most controversial and state-of-the-art topics for systems engineering and safety (Nektarios Karanikas, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, NL).
We would like to thank:
ICAO for their support to the event
Aegean Airlines (GR) and Kindunos Consultancy (NL) for their kind sponsorship
We would also like to thank the organising committee members Nick Leegstra and Rianne Boute under the leadership of Sanne van Dorp. Finally, we express our deep appreciation to the programme committee members for their efforts to review the abstracts and full papers (in alphabetical order of the last name):
James Catmur, JC&A Ltd., UK
Steve Denniss, WSP, UK
Kubra Kaya, University of Cambridge, UK
Genovefa Kefalidou, University of Leicester, UK
Angela Ku, Jacobs, UK
Alberto Martinetti, University of Twente, NL
Catherine Menon, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Jan Przydatek, Lloyds Register Foundation, UK
Alfred Roelen, Netherlands Aerospace Centre, NL
Emma Taylor, RSSB, UK
The conference would not have been possible without the commitment of all these individuals.
In this report, we summarise the presentations hosted by the ICSC 2018, grouped into related topics. We hope the readers will indicate several interesting positions, studies and concepts and contact the contributors for any inquiries and possible collaborations.
Promoting the notion of collaborative environments, Stavros Christeas (Aegean Airlines, GR) introduced a collaborative two-stage training programme between Aegean Airlines and the Hellenic Air Force. The first stage takes place at the Hellenic Air Force Aeromedical Centre where AEGEAN pilots undergo hypoxia tests and simulated disorientation tests. The second stage involves both simulated and actual flights on military aeroplanes at Kalamata air force base. Likewise, Natalia Mogles (University of Bath, UK) opened up for discussion the subject of trans-disciplinary engineering. The related literature suggests including traditional safety specialists, newly applied disciplines, policymakers, culture and societal values experts and humanitarians in a transdisciplinary safety analysis and design team.
Mohammad Rajabalineiad (University of Twente, NL) and Mikela Chatzimichailidou (WSP and Imperial College London, UK) discussed the benefits of safety by design. The former argued why safety must be an integral part of the design process and used the ‘safety cube’ concept that combines design, hazard identification, risk assessment and risk reduction. Mikela introduced an indicator to measure the divergence of the systems as operated from the systems as designed. This divergence was measured for a mid-air collision accident where the values of the indicator fluctuated nonlinearly alongside the accident development due to the degradation of the system’s elements and mechanisms. Carsten Bush (Mind the Risk, NO) challenged the positive developments in safety science and hinted on their possible downsides by using five mechanisms: the language used to discuss topics, the emergence of professional tribalism, the evolution of ideas and concepts, side-effects of success, and ethical dilemmas people encounter in their everyday work.
Mart de Vre (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, NL) talked about an aviation case study that was conducted to assess compliance of a Ground Handler with standards. The study showed that even when compliance is the target, substantial improvement moves beyond box-ticking and engages employees in the revelation and mitigation of system imperfections. In a similar manner, but in the field of healthcare, Mannat Kaur (Art of Work, NL & AU) introduced the restorative practice at an NHS foundation trust. Restorative justice aims to replace hurt by healing in the understanding that the perpetrators of pain are also victims of the incident. For the specific case study, the total economic benefit was about £2.5 million or approximately 1% of the total costs and 2% of the labour costs. Next, Antonio di Letio (CSMART, NL) argued that a new concept to plan critical navigational elements is required for navigation and manoeuvring in confined waters; this includes essential, timely, and unambiguous challenging and responding between bridge team members.
Alfred Roelen (Netherlands Aerospace Centre, NL) explained how the combination of two tools, namely, AVAC-SCP and ASC-IT as well as follow-up interviews were used to search the extent to which an airline institutionalised, implemented and affected safety culture. This approach allowed to picture the overall safety culture level of the organisation and the gaps between plans, implementation and perception within and across the different company levels and functions. Job Smeltink (Netherlands Aerospace Centre, NL) presented the results from a study at Luton Airport Stack, which shows that when organisations share a place, e.g. an airport, they need to meet and discuss potential safety threats and opportunities; organisations are interdependent, but safety issues in one organisation often have implications for others.
Nektarios Karanikas (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, NL) examined the degree to which new safety thinking and models have been visible in safety investigations. Differences were revealed amongst investigation authorities but not over time. The study suggested that safety thinking approaches were followed by investigators to different extents, whilst there was a very low degree of using systemic accident models. Jaco van der Westhuizen (Air Traffic and Navigation Services, ZA) gave an overarching talk on social complexities and how they impact on the use of critical incident reporting systems. The competing consequences that the safety management system offers to a critical incident reporter are mutually exclusive and have a direct influence on the frequency and quality of actual reporting. The results of the study highlighted that each organisational level has its own socially constructed themes.
Touching on automation, Danilo Da Costa (Continental Teves AG & Co. oHG, DE) gave a presentation on the hazards related to human actions in autonomous driving with an aim to evaluate how the majority of hazards can be captured at the earliest phase of the development of a new highly automated system. Different methods were assessed to find the most compatible with this new scenario. Sunil Basnet (Aalto University School of Engineering, FI) compared modelling approaches and risk analysis methods for a complex and automated ship system. The results of the study showed the advantages of newer methods (SysML & STPA) against traditional methods such as FTA that are highly implemented in the industry.
Odd Ivar Haugen (DNV GL, NO) argued that an automatic condition-based survey scheme (i.e. utilising sensors and algorithms) is more efficient and effective than the traditional calendar-based survey scheme. Following concerns regarding the independence of verification agents, he proposed the use of algorithm-based verification agents in the offshore industry. Remaining in the offshore sector, Emma Verschoor (CGE Risk Management Solutions, NL) claimed that Bow Tie Models are useful to verify not only the presence of the barriers, but also the supporting activities that are linked to the barriers (e.g. training and maintenance) to get a complete picture. To demonstrate this, she used a case study where Fisheries made targeted risk-based decisions through the specific method.
Referring to maintenance, Jelle Hieminga (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, NL) developed a two-level taxonomy, using a high-level overview of the aircraft maintenance process. Results from the application of the taxonomy to aviation reports showed that its increased level of detail allowed for the identification of procedure types that had been more susceptible to errors (e.g. installation or removal of components). Also, Anastasios Plioutsias (National Technical University of Athens, GR) talked about research that collected, selected and recorded aviation accidents and occurrences attributed to maintenance errors. The researchers further analysed and categorised the accidents based on PEAR and DIRTY DOZEN, and assessed in more detail the presence of human factors in maintenance-related accidents. Lisa Whittaker (Western Michigan University, USA) studied the relationship between engineering and maintenance technology systems (MSG-3) and safety management systems (SMS). By analysing their similarities and differences, she identified best practices that address system safety in operations.
Judging from the variety of the presentations as well as their content and quality, we are convinced that the 3rd edition of the ICSC was successful and served its intended scope. We look forward to welcoming you to the next edition of the ICSC.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.