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.
A literature review, which was conducted during the research project “Measuring Safety in Aviation – Developing Metrics for Safety Management Systems”, identified several problems and challenges regarding safety performance metrics in aviation. The findings from this review were used to create a framework for interviewing 13 companies in order to explore how safety performance is measured in the industry. The results from the surveys showed a wide variety of approaches for assessing the level of safety. The companies encounter and/or recognise problematic areas in practice when implementing their safety management. The findings from the literature review are partially confirmed and it seems that the current ways of measuring safety performance are not as straight forward as it might be assumed. Further research is recommended to explore alternative methods for measuring aviation safety performance.
Various tools for safety performance measurement have been introduced in order to fulfil the need for safety monitoring in organisations, which is tightly related to their overall performance and achievement of their business goals. Such tools include accident rates, benchmarking, safety culture and climate assessments, cost-effectiveness studies, etc. The current work reviews the most representative methods for safety performance evaluation that have been suggested and applied by a variety of organisations, safety authorities and agencies. This paper discusses several viewpoints of the applicability, feasibility and appropriateness of such tools, based on the viewpoints of managers and safety experts involved in a relevant research that was conducted in a large aviation organisation. The extensive literature cited, the discussion topics, along with the conclusions and recommendations derived, might be considered by any organisation that seeks a realistic safety performance assessment and establishment of effective measurement tools.
The research proposal aims to improve the design and verification process for coastal protection works. With global sea levels rising, the Netherlands, in particular, faces the challenge of protecting its coastline from potential flooding. Four strategies for coastal protection are recognized: protection-closed (dikes, dams, dunes), protection-open (storm surge barriers), advancing the coastline (beach suppletion, reclamation), and accommodation through "living with water" concepts. The construction process of coastal protection works involves collaboration between the client and contractors. Different roles, such as project management, project control, stakeholder management, technical management, and contract management, work together to ensure the project's success. The design and verification process is crucial in coastal protection projects. The contract may include functional requirements or detailed design specifications. Design drawings with tolerances are created before construction begins. During construction and final verification, the design is measured using survey data. The accuracy of the measurement techniques used can impact the construction process and may lead to contractual issues if not properly planned. The problem addressed in the research proposal is the lack of a comprehensive and consistent process for defining and verifying design specifications in coastal protection projects. Existing documents focus on specific aspects of the process but do not provide a holistic approach. The research aims to improve the definition and verification of design specifications through a systematic review of contractual parameters and survey methods. It seeks to reduce potential claims, improve safety, enhance the competitiveness of maritime construction companies, and decrease time spent on contractual discussions. The research will have several outcomes, including a body of knowledge describing existing and best practices, a set of best practices and recommendations for verifying specific design parameters, and supporting documents such as algorithms for verification.
The consistent demand for improving products working in a real-time environment is increasing, given the rise in system complexity and urge to constantly optimize the system. One such problem faced by the component supplier is to ensure their product viability under various conditions. Suppliers are at times dependent on the client’s hardware to perform full system level testing and verify own product behaviour under real circumstances. This slows down the development cycle due to dependency on client’s hardware, complexity and safety risks involved with real hardware. Moreover, in the expanding market serving multiple clients with different requirements can be challenging. This is also one of the challenges faced by HyMove, who are the manufacturer of Hydrogen fuel cells module (https://www.hymove.nl/). To match this expectation, it starts with understanding the component behaviour. Hardware in the loop (HIL) is a technique used in development and testing of the real-time systems across various engineering domain. It is a virtual simulation testing method, where a virtual simulation environment, that mimics real-world scenarios, around the physical hardware component is created, allowing for a detailed evaluation of the system’s behaviour. These methods play a vital role in assessing the functionality, robustness and reliability of systems before their deployment. Testing in a controlled environment helps understand system’s behaviour, identify potential issues, reduce risk, refine controls and accelerate the development cycle. The goal is to incorporate the fuel cell system in HIL environment to understand it’s potential in various real-time scenarios for hybrid drivelines and suggest secondary power source sizing, to consolidate appropriate hybridization ratio, along with optimizing the driveline controls. As this is a concept with wider application, this proposal is seen as the starting point for more follow-up research. To this end, a student project is already carried out on steering column as HIL
Aanleiding: Automatisering kan leiden tot beter gebruik van materialen en afval reduceren. Dit brengt verbeteringen met zich mee voor 'people, planet and profit' (PPP) - mensen, het milieu en de winst. Een specifieke vorm van automatisering, de ontwikkeling van zelfrijdende auto's en vrachtauto's, gaat snel. Maar om zelfrijdende voertuigen beschikbaar te maken is er nog veel onderzoek en ontwikkeling nodig op verschillende gebieden. Er zijn nog veel vragen te beantwoorden op het gebied van onder andere truckontwerp, betrouwbare software, aansprakelijkheid, trajectplanning en logistiek. Doelstelling Het doel van het Intralog-project is om voor de maatschappij en de private sector een significante bijdrage te leveren aan de mogelijkheden van zelfrijdende voertuigen in de commerciële transportsector. Het Intralog-project onderzoekt de toegevoegde waarde voor PPP van 'automated guided trucks' (AGT's) aan logistieke operaties bij distributiecentra en interterminal/intermodal traffic hubs. Dit gebeurt in twee stappen: 1) het identificeren van het potentieel met betrekking tot de vraag vanuit de logistieke omgeving; 2. het ontwerpen, realiseren, testen en valideren van mogelijke strategieën voor het implementeren van AGT's in een logistiek scenario. Beoogde resultaten Het concrete resultaat van het project bestaat uit onderzoekstools en hardware- en softwaremodellen voor Intralog. Deze bieden een goede mogelijkheid om de opgedane kennis te verspreiden. De projectdeelnemers zullen bijdragen aan workshops, tentoonstellingen en in Nederland georganiseerde symposia. De onderzoeksresultaten verspreiden ze op conferenties en door middel van publicaties in technische vakbladen. De uiteindelijke Intralog-resultaten worden gepresenteerd op een afsluitend congres. De resultaten zullen worden samengevat in een boekje.
