Operational Risk: Implementing Open Norms Erasmus Project

Project Title

Operational Risk: Implementing Open Norms

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In order to be effective, a Management System for operational safety or occupational safety and health needs to be fully embedded in everyday practice so that good safety practice becomes part of the norms and culture of the organisation. Yet most organisations find it to be enormously challenging to make the transition from having a management system ‘on paper’ to living it on a day-to-day basis. It requires the skills and capability to productively address the systemic factors that influence an motivate people to behave in particular ways and to facilitate change. It also requires learning from others’ experience – but the evidence base for implementation of this last stage of SMS (Safety Management Systems) is very limited. There is a gap that needs to be filled, between the aspirations of SMS to transform organisational safety and evidence-based guidance to achieve this.

The objectives are to design, develop and deliver training to support and facilitate implementation and embedding of SMS in norms of practice and effective management of risk in the operation. The training in four associate partner sites will each contribute an implementation case study. A validation programme will verify delivery on stakeholder needs for a mature SMS and validate the project outcomes. This will support the development of guidelines for open norms of best practice in the full implementation of SMS. An implementation package for SMS maturity will be presented at a series of multiplier events to demonstrate its sustainable exploitation potential.

The partners comprise two universities and three SMEs, combining an extensive body of research, development and high-level education together with extensive experience of training and consultancy concerning human aspects of the management of safety. This is the right combination of research knowledge and implementation experience to address the gap. Associate partners come from aviation, health, and emergency services in five countries – Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Cyprus and Turkey.

A common train-the-trainer programme will enable the partners to deliver the SMS maturity programme in the local sites with their associate partners, facilitating ongoing implementation of SMS and OSHAS, and producing implementation case studies. The training materials, the case studies and a validation programme will together form the basis of best practice guidelines to be disseminated in local multiplier events.

Core methodologies comprise human factors, safety management and organisational change. Training design will focus on the organisational context, soft skills in managing people, processes and information, and managing and monitoring implementation. This will transform the results from multiple European collaborative RTD programmes into practical training programmes to facilitate implementation of a mature culturally embedded SMS. Case study reports from this implementation will extend the evidence base across different industrial domains in different European regions. These multiple case studies will establish the generalisability of the concepts.

This will result in the validated delivery of a programme of training and SMS facilitation in four contrasting sites. A generic SMS implementation framework will be developed, and its applicability explored in a series of multiplier workshops with representatives of diverse industries in the regions concerned.

The short term impact will include the following: enhanced SMS facilitation in the associates involved will active involvement of all staff, leading to more effective outcomes in the management of operational risk; extended training capabilities of the SMEs will create a sustainable business model that can be applied more widely; the application of European research findings will ensure that value is realised from extensive in-depth study, testing its generalisability and suggesting further research questions and issues.

Longer term benefits include improved SMS and OSHAS regulation and standards, including codes of practice, acceptable means of compliance and other guidance material, through paying attention to the full implementation and enculturation of SMS. This will lead to improved outcomes in the management of operational risk, across a wide range of risk-critical industries. It will also lead to a stronger economy and business model in the provision of safety related services across these industries, and promote a culture of sharing and learning from best practice in implementation.

Project Website

https://www.tcd.ie/cihs/projects/orion.php

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 295722 Eur

Project Coordinator

THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Stamina Consulting Ltd
• ERGONOMICA SNC di Daniele Baranzini e C.
• KRATIS TRAINING AND CONSULTING LIMITED
• KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN