shep532:
As I said before, I could type thousands of words to explain how we got to where we were with whatever procedures in place and still not justify it to you.
Yes, because there is no justification. It is not something that needs justification, it is a systemic breakdown that needs to be addressed somehow.
It’s also no good stating that system operators simply must comply with the system - it is part of crafting a good system that creates the compliance on which it depends. That is, creating compliance is part of the role of the system, and a lack of compliance is a defect of the system.
I do sympathise with you that it is an immensely difficult job, but I think where many process designers go wrong, and create a monstrosity, is when compliance is simply taken for granted - and it’s a theme that does run through your posts that puts the principal blame for disaster on non-compliance, rather than on the unworkability of the system (which although you acknowlge it too, it takes secondary place behind non-compliance, when in fact unworkability is the principal cause of non-compliance, a long way ahead of mere unconscientiousness).
The fact that so many individuals at once were not complying is a strong indication of a systemic factor. One person can always make a mistake or take a shortcut, but in robust systems other actors then take corrective action to restore order. When multiple people across many roles at several levels all take shortcut after shortcut, it’s a sign that the system is imposing unrealistic workloads and has therefore broken down. That’s the root cause.
I fully understand the frustrations of drivers or whoever when what seems like a stupid needless procedure is time consuming but that does not excuse not following said procedures.
It is an excuse if you’ve got 8 hours of time and 9 hours of work. More subtly, the mental and motivational fatigue that can accumulate is also an excuse - the main counter-balance to the fatigue created by complex procedures is that they are highly predictable and stepwise. If complex procedures become vexed with decision points, waiting times, out-of-order processing, exceptional steps, multiple simultaneous demands for a single resource, and so forth, people become tired and start to make mistakes or implement ‘demand control’ by omitting or modifying the steps of the procedure.
I honestly don’t think many managers realise (whether in the context of safety or not) that each worker has a budget of physical and mental effort, as well as a time budget. But unlike the time budget, it doesn’t consist of a fixed measurable resource but is something that is affected by mood, breaks, sense of purpose, and which has a limit on its rate of consumption and regeneration. It is enormously difficult to boil it down to a science, but the customary level of effort (already maximised by experiments by generations of previous managers) is a good indication of how much effort can be extracted - and if a new system imposes new workloads, you need to look at reducing some of the existing workload to compensate (or add manpower to the system, not because workers are short of time, but because the existing system already extracts the maximum effort they can bear, even if those workers are observed to be in an idle condition for half the working day).
A system can occasionally make exceptional demands to correct exceptional circumstances, but if it makes exceptional demands every day and nothing is ever straightforward, all it does is disrupt people’s habits to the point that the habit is destroyed, creates resentment, and causes non-compliance. That’s the key point. And once management have lost credibility, it may be difficult to restore discipline afterwards, once non-compliance has itself become a habit.
If they don’t understand them then ask. As I said, if everyone did everything as they should in the first place these procedures and H&S [zb] wouldn’t be needed. Of course time has to be allowed for whatever controls are in place and there lies another problem - there’s never enough time in this industry.
Then people don’t have time to comply! The system is unworkable. What blame can you attribute to people who are failing to work a system that cannot be worked?
In the ideal world, people would down tools and cease operations in response to an unworkable system, but usually that would lead to sackings and haemorrhaging of profits, so people just go back to the old evolved way of working prior to the ‘new system’ - which is definitely workable, even if it is not remotely safe - or some hybrid of the two which keeps up appearances.
It is usually the case that any new workable system of safety requires vastly more resources than the old unsafe system. The reason the old system took its form is not usually sloppiness alone but usually because it was seen to be economic with resources.
I’ll come back to the Health & Safety legislation. I learned a lot the day a driver forgot to put his handbrake on whilst coupling. …The HSE were not the slightest bit interested in the drivers actions - only why we as a company didn’t prevent it.
Because they think in a similar manner to how I am thinking in this discussion.
That brought about handbrake alarms, banksmen supervising coupling procedures, check lists and procedures, wheel chocks, signs, airline locks, VOR locks etc etc etc because the H&SAW legislation makes the company responsible if it hasn’t done virtually everything possible to stop something happening.
And you’ve done everything but accept responsibility for designing a good, workable system. How can a H&S manager be blasé about the time and resources needed to operate a safe system (“there is never enough time in this industry”), and then complain that it’s impossible to achieve compliance? The HSE is there to hit firms on the head with a hammer until they come up with the time and resources needed to achieve a workable safety system that attracts compliance because of its ease, attractiveness, and natural flow - there is always enough time and resources that can be made available for such a system.
I think we have already had the correct answers to this posted - as long as people go out of their way not to follow procedures - the rest of us will be stuck with these procedures.
Which is really an absurd a statement I’ve heard in the field of health and safety - that the answer to drivers not wanting to comply, is to make the system more burdensome to comply with. It’s folly in the extreme, and demonstrates where firms get it so wrong on this issue and have the HSE back in pulling down the shutters.
