Process Safety Behavioral Systems: Behaviors Interlock in Complex Metacontingencies
Timothy D. Ludwig | Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Vol. 37 , Iss. 3-4,2017
This paper seeks to identify behavioral components active in process safety. Three types of behavior classes are identified as contributors to process safety: task-specific behaviors, safety-directed behaviors, and behaviors associated with situational awareness. Behavioral systems analysis is used to provide a framework for identifying the cross-functional interlocking behavioral contingencies that can, even over a period of years, contribute to process safety incidents. Leadership behaviors are also identified that can create the context in the form of metacontingencies that maintain these interlocking contingencies.
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Process Safety: Another Opportunity to Translate Behavior Analysis into Evidence-Based Practices of Grave Societal Value
Timothy D. Ludwig | Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Vol. 37 , Iss. 3-4,2017
Our society often turns to engineering when the stakes are high and human lives are in the balance. The vehicles and railroads that cross our continents, the buildings that we live and work in, and the instruments used to heal are all highly engineered products that enhance human existence. To produce these, we rely on engineering related to the extraction of raw materials from our earth and the refinement the materials construct and power our modern world. As our society exploits these engineering feats, we are also frequently made aware of how these industries can cause great harm through environmental releases, explosions, and work-related fatalities. This is the new world of Process Safety.
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Complacency in Process Safety: A Behavior Analysis Toward Prevention Strategies
Cloyd Hyten & Timothy D. Ludwig | Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Vol. 37 , Iss. 3-4,2017
Complacency inhibits safe behaviors of workers and managers. This is of concern to industries where process safety is needed to reduce the chance of catastrophic events such as fires and explosions. A behavioral definition of complacency is offered as trending behavioral variation that eventually exceeds safety boundaries. Behavioral processes that contribute to these patterns of variability are discussed and analyzed, including habituation, extinction, unprogrammed reinforcement, the avoidance paradox, rule-governed behavior, and competing contingencies of production. Solution strategies are suggested that address this analysis of behavioral variance, including pinpointing behavioral variation related to safety, changing training design, strengthening positive reinforcement for process-related behaviors of workers and management, reducing sources of unprogrammed reinforcement for dangerous variation, strengthening rule-governed behavior, and changing contingencies for managers and executives whose decisions affect behavior and process safety at many levels in the company.
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An Industry's Call to Understand the Contingencies Involved in Process Safety: Normalization of Deviance
Kevin Bogard, Timothy D. Ludwig, Chris Staats, Danielle Kretschmer | Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Volume 35, Number 1-2, 2015
Marathon Petroleum Company (MPC), Illinois Refining Division (IRD) adopted a behavior science approach to its safety operations becoming one of the first sites accredited for its behavioral safety program by the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (CCBS). Beyond success in managing personal safety, there is increased and intense attention toward Process Safety in the oil and gas industry where equipment, processes, and behavior are managed to reduce the potential for catastrophic loss, damage, and impact on human life and livelihood. The oil and gas industry is increasingly looking to the behavior science community to understand the contingencies related to “normalization of deviance”, where behaviors begin to drift from process standards and become the norm among work teams over time. Further, the oil and gas industry seeks to understand how interlocking contingencies may both shape and maintain normalization of deviance, as well as how systemic interventions can address the issue.
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