‘Rule-based’ safety is based on anticipating situations that are likely to arise, and putting in place rules and resources to deal with them. ‘Managed safety’ refers to the reaction of competent people who are present in real time and who react appropriately.
This analysis examines the balance between these two modes, based on compliance and proactivity.
Why is this theme important?
How we conceive of safety in the industry is the historical result of a social construction at the national scale, based on a social memory of catastrophes.
The current dominant approach consists of a gradual accumulation of new rules that are produced in response to experience feedback. The volume of rules is already problematic in many industrial sectors, which contributes to the well-known risk of normalizing deviance.
However, globalization, the digital revolution, the decompartmentalization of industries as they conquer new domains of expertise, the break-up of sectors and branches, subcontracting and, above all, the speed with which these changes are taking place within and outside organizations, are changing the situation. In view of these rapid changes, models based on the continuous improvement of a system that is assumed to be stable are under threat. The balance between rule-based and managed safety may need to be reviewed.
Results
Compliance and Initiative in the Production of Safety
SpringerBrief in Safety Management
Articulation between compliance and initiative in safety management
Industrial Safety 'Cahier'
Further reading
Industrial Safety 'Tribunes'
- Professionals, experts, and super experts, by René Amalberti
- Is expertise dangerous?, by Jean Pariès
- Another look at rule-based and managed safety…, by Jean Pariès
- Rule-based-managed: avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater, by Lucie Cuvelier (in French)
Reading advice (in French)
- The move from a rule based to risk oriented system - Challenges for the competent authority, by Tobias Schaller
- Designing Safety Regulations for High-Hazard Industries, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
- Safety and autonomy: a contradiction forever?, by Gudela Grote
The strategic analysis
Methodology
Strategic analysis is a working methodology developed by the Foncsi. It aims to ensure high-level research over a particularly short period (18-24 months), and to establish a continuum of innovation between research and industry.
There are four key stages:
- The state of the art
- The international academic seminar
- Comparison with industrial practices
- The industrial seminar
Find out more about strategic analyses
The project team for this analysis
Scientific experts
- Eric Marsden, Foncsi program manager
- Benoît Journé, University of Nantes
- Jean-Christophe Le Coze, Ineris
Experts from companies and associated organizations
- Julien Kahn & Cécile Laugier, EDF
- Philippe Noël, TotalEnergies
- Olivier Rolland et Olivier Omnes, EPSF
- Valérie Vassent, Bertrand Mangin, Alexandre Largier & Tania Navarro, IRSN
- Florence-Marie Jegoux, DSAC-DGAC
- Romuald Perinet, Engie-GRTgaz
- Frédéric Hénon, UIC
- Philippe Loche, formerly SNCF
- Nicolas Wolff, Eurovia-Groupe Vinci