Although reengineering is strategically advantageous for
organisations in order to keep functional and sustainable, safety must remain a
priority and respective efforts need to be maintained. This paper suggests
the combination of soft system methodology (SSM) and Pareto analysis
on the scope of safety management performance evaluation, and presents the
results of a survey, which was conducted in order to assess the effectiveness,
efficacy and ethicality of the individual components of an organisation’s safety
program. The research employed quantitative and qualitative data and ensured
a broad representation of functional managers and safety professionals, who
collectively hold the responsibility for planning, implementing and monitoring
safety practices. The results showed that SSM can support the assessment of
safety management performance by revealing weaknesses of safety initiatives,
and Pareto analysis can underwrite the prioritisation of the remedies required.
The specific methodology might be adapted by any organisation that requires a
deep evaluation of its safety management performance, seeks to uncover the
mechanisms that affect such performance, and, under limited resources, needs
to focus on the most influential deficiencies.