A new systems approach to safety management with applications to Arctic ship navigation

Smith, Doug (2019) A new systems approach to safety management with applications to Arctic ship navigation. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (5MB)

Abstract

This research is intended to improve the techniques available to safety assessors and provide tools for decision making in safety management. This is done by fostering a new paradigm for safety management, which forms the basis for the performance measurement and process mapping/monitoring (PMPM) method. The research examines safety management philosophies and compares methods, including fault trees, Bayesian Networks, and the functional resonance analysis method (FRAM). This examination is intended to provide a broad understanding of the fundamental safety and risk concepts. The understanding provides the background knowledge to undertake an adaptive safety approach for an Arctic shipping application. The FRAM was adopted for Arctic ship navigation: where three captains were interviewed to form the basis for a functional map of the way ship navigation work can be performed. Also, variations in the ways ship navigation work is performed was recorded from the captains to help understand some of the ways captains may adjust their work to the dynamic conditions they face. Two additions to the FRAM are presented in this work: 1) functional signatures and 2) system performance measurements. Functional signatures provide a method for assessors to animate the FRAM and visualize the functional dynamics over time. System performance measurement provides a way to bring an element of quantification to the FRAM. Quantification can then be used to help compare different scenarios and support decisions. These additions to the FRAM have been demonstrated using data from an ice management ship simulator experiment. The demonstration can be used as a basis to continue future analysis of using this method in the maritime domain or transfer this approach to other domains.

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