Insights from meta-analyses of incidents
Maureen Hassall A *A
![]() Maureen Hassall is Professor and Director of the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre at the University of Queensland. She develops and delivers industry-focused research, training and expert consultancy projects that combine innovative and impactful human-centred design, risk management and safety engineering approaches to improve workers’ and companies’ health, safety, wellbeing and performance. Maureen’s academic work is motivated by 18 years working in a range of high hazard industries across a number of different countries. She holds Bachelors’ degrees in Engineering and Psychology, a Master’s in Business Administration and a PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering. She is also a registered Professional and Chartered Engineer and a certified Ergonomist. |
Abstract
Across the world, process safety incidents continue to occur at an unacceptably high rate. This paper explores the application of bowtie and AcciMap analyses to perform meta-analyses of these incidents. Bowties are used to investigate what insights can be derived about causes, consequences and barrier performance. AcciMap analysis is used to investigate what insights can be derived about organisational contributions to barrier performance during incidents. Based on the findings from these analyses, recommendations are made about future directions to develop more timely and effective learning from incident systems.
Keywords: AcciMap, bowtie, incident, investigation, process safety, risk control, risk management, safety, safety barrier.
![]() Maureen Hassall is Professor and Director of the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre at the University of Queensland. She develops and delivers industry-focused research, training and expert consultancy projects that combine innovative and impactful human-centred design, risk management and safety engineering approaches to improve workers’ and companies’ health, safety, wellbeing and performance. Maureen’s academic work is motivated by 18 years working in a range of high hazard industries across a number of different countries. She holds Bachelors’ degrees in Engineering and Psychology, a Master’s in Business Administration and a PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering. She is also a registered Professional and Chartered Engineer and a certified Ergonomist. |
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