In this paper we present a review of existing aviation safety metrics and we lay the foundation for our four-years research project entitled “Measuring Safety in Aviation – Developing Metrics for Safety Management Systems”. We reviewed state-of-the-art literature, relevant standards and regulations, and industry practice. We identified that the long-established view on safety as absence of losses has limited the measurement of safety performance to indicators of adverse events (e.g., accident and incident rates). However, taking into account the sparsity of incidents and accidents compared to the amount of aviation operations, and the recent shift from compliance to performance based approach to safety management, the exclusive use of outcomes metrics does not suffice to further improve safety and establish a proactive monitoring of safety performance. Although the academia and aviation industry have recognized the need to use activity indicators for evaluating how safety management processes perform, and various process metrics have been developed, those have not yet become part of safety performance assessment. This is partly attributed to the lack of empirical evidence about the relation between safety proxies and safety outcomes, and the diversity of safety models used to depict safety management processes (i.e. root-cause, epidemiological or systemic models). This, in turn, has resulted to the development of many safety process metrics, which, however, have not been thoroughly tested against the quality criteria referred in literature, such as validity, reliability and practicality.
In this document, we provide the methodological background for the Safety atWork project. This document combines several project deliverables as defined inthe overall project plan: validation techniques and methods (D5.1.1), performanceindicators for safety at work (D5.1.2), personal protection equipment methods(D2.1.2), situational awareness methods (D3.1.2), and persuasive technology methods(D4.1.2).
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Vertical and horizontal alignment within organizations are seen as prerequisites for meeting strategic objectives and indications of effective management. In the area of safety management, the concept of vertical alignment has been followed through the introduction of hierarchical structures and bidirectional communication, but horizontal alignment has been given little attention. The principal goal of this study was the assessment of horizontal alignment within an aviation organization with the use of data from safety investigations, audits and meetings in order to explore the extent to which (1) causal factors recorded in safety investigation reports comprised topics discussed by safety committees and focus areas of internal safety auditors, and (2) the agendas of safety committees include weak points revealed during safety audits. The study employed qualitative and quantitative analysis of data collected over a 6 years’ period at three organizational levels. The results suggested a low horizontal alignment across the three pairs of the corresponding safety management activities within each organizational level. The findings were attributed to the inadequacy of procedures and lack of a safety information database for consistently sharing safety information, cultural factors and lack of planning for the coordination of safety management activities. The current research comprises a contribution to the literature and practice and introduces a technique to assess the intra-alignment of safety management initiatives within various organizational levels. Future research is needed in order to investigate the association between horizontal alignment of safety management practices and safety performance.
The integration of renewable energy resources, controllable devices and energy storage into electricity distribution grids requires Decentralized Energy Management to ensure a stable distribution process. This demands the full integration of information and communication technology into the control of distribution grids. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) is used to communicate measurements and commands between individual components and the control server. In the future this control is especially needed at medium voltage and probably also at the low voltage. This leads to an increased connectivity and thereby makes the system more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. According to the research agenda NCSRA III, the energy domain is becoming a prime target for cyber-attacks, e.g., abusing control protocol vulnerabilities. Detection of such attacks in SCADA networks is challenging when only relying on existing network Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs). Although these systems were designed specifically for SCADA, they do not necessarily detect malicious control commands sent in legitimate format. However, analyzing each command in the context of the physical system has the potential to reveal certain inconsistencies. We propose to use dedicated intrusion detection mechanisms, which are fundamentally different from existing techniques used in the Internet. Up to now distribution grids are monitored and controlled centrally, whereby measurements are taken at field stations and send to the control room, which then issues commands back to actuators. In future smart grids, communication with and remote control of field stations is required. Attackers, who gain access to the corresponding communication links to substations can intercept and even exchange commands, which would not be detected by central security mechanisms. We argue that centralized SCADA systems should be enhanced by a distributed intrusion-detection approach to meet the new security challenges. Recently, as a first step a process-aware monitoring approach has been proposed as an additional layer that can be applied directly at Remote Terminal Units (RTUs). However, this allows purely local consistency checks. Instead, we propose a distributed and integrated approach for process-aware monitoring, which includes knowledge about the grid topology and measurements from neighboring RTUs to detect malicious incoming commands. The proposed approach requires a near real-time model of the relevant physical process, direct and secure communication between adjacent RTUs, and synchronized sensor measurements in trustable real-time, labeled with accurate global time-stamps. We investigate, to which extend the grid topology can be integrated into the IDS, while maintaining near real-time performance. Based on topology information and efficient solving of power flow equation we aim to detect e.g. non-consistent voltage drops or the occurrence of over/under-voltage and -current. By this, centrally requested switching commands and transformer tap change commands can be checked on consistency and safety based on the current state of the physical system. The developed concepts are not only relevant to increase the security of the distribution grids but are also crucial to deal with future developments like e.g. the safe integration of microgrids in the distribution networks or the operation of decentralized heat or biogas networks.
Aanleiding De luchtvaart wordt steeds veiliger. Toch zijn er alleen al in Nederland jaarlijks zo'n 11.000 issues met luchtvaartveiligheid. Wereldwijd vinden er elke dag ongelukken plaats die leiden tot schade aan vliegtuigen. Om de veiligheid verder te verbeteren is er nieuwe internationale regelgeving opgesteld. Onder deze regels moeten de maatschappijen alle incidenten en ongelukken analyseren en zo veiligheidsrisico's identificeren nog voordat deze zich voordoen. Het probleem is dat kleine en middelgrote luchtvaartmaatschappijen onvoldoende vliegbewegingen maken om genoeg goede data hiervoor te hebben. Doelstelling De centrale vraag die de onderzoekers in dit RAAK-project willen beantwoorden: Wat is de relatie tussen veiligheidsmanagement en veiligheidsperformance van luchtvaartmaatschappijen? Het onderzoek wil kleine en middelgrote luchtvaartmaatschappijen helpen bij het meten van de veiligheid van hun bedrijf, zonder dat ze grote hoeveelheden veiligheidsdata tot hun beschikking hebben. Het onderzoek zal geschikte veiligheidsindicatoren identificeren, een longlist ontwikkelen met meetwaarden voor safetymanagement, en een shortlist genereren en valideren van bruikbare meetwaarden. Deze kennis wordt vertaald in een online dashboard voor de industrie, zodat de veiligheid objectiever beoordeeld kan worden. Beoogde resultaten Een concreet resultaat van dit project is een online dashboard waarmee kleine en middelgrote luchtvaartmaatschappijen hun veiligheid kunnen beoordelen, inclusief handleiding. Er zullen masterclasses veiligheid worden georganiseerd voor de luchtvaartindustrie. Het projectteam zal de opgedane kennis verspreiden via wetenschappelijke artikelen in relevante peer-reviewed tijdschriften, een website, presentaties bij bedrijven en tijdens bijeenkomsten, en een afsluitende conferentie.
In September 2018 a gaming dashboard is implemented and reviewed on effect at Jan de Rijk, Gebroeders Versteijnen and Merba. The dash board should give insight in the individual and team performance of employees in the their work processes through a gamesome modern visualisation‘In what way is it possible to design and apply ‘game design techniques’ and ‘game elements’ in performance dashboards, so that employees are constantly motivated to improve productivity, quality and safety of their individual proceedings and learning, so that the investment in gamification is profitable?’
