hUMAn FACTORS EMPhASizE bEhAviOUR

it is an insightful approach to safety that is focused on behaviour, results, improvement and a Just culture. Methanex corporation is embracing the human Factors program, offered by the Keil centre (scotland), as part of its emphasis on continuous improvement in safety.

Defined as the “environmental, organizational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work”, human Factors is based on the Centre’s Safety Culture Maturity ®1 Model that maps the path to safety excellence along five levels. The program will re-focus attention on behaviour, looking beneath the surface to understand why and how incidents occur. The ultimate objective is to keep people safe by improving safety performance, strengthening our communication systems and safety culture.

First introduced at Methanex, new zealand in 2007, the human Factors program is being extended to other manufacturing sites with a survey to establish a Maturity index baseline as the first step in the process. in 2012, Methanex Trinidad scored 3.6 on the Maturity index, with 96% employee response to the online survey managed by keil Centre. This puts us at the ‘involving’ stage (Level 3) on the Safety Culture Maturity Model and is similar to the 2009 BST survey result when another behaviour-based safety program – CORE (Critical Observations Reduce Exposure) – was being introduced at Methanex Trinidad.

Deonanan Jagdip, Senior Responsible Care Advisor and Team Lead for human Factors at the Trinidad site, explained how human Factors complements CORE. “Both programs use the A-B-C tool: Antecedent, Behaviour and Consequence. CORE is field specific and corrects behaviour in the field; human Factors goes beyond the field to understand the human elements that lead to incidents……to explain the why and how of incidents.” in 2013, keil consultants conducted sessions onsite to share additional information, train an 8-person team on the human Factors Analysis Tool (h FAT) and supervise a 2-day workshop for the development of a health & Safety Behaviour Standard which will be rolled out as part of the next step activity. The human Factors Analysis Tool supports the program’s important ‘Just Culture’ feature that considers whether the behaviour that lead to incidents is intentional (leading to consequences) or non-intentional.

Deo noted that the next step will also include three extraction workshops for all employees, supervisors and managers using data on behaviours currently being displayed as the basis for discussion. Significantly, behaviour standards for each group will require agreement on an “i Will” and “i Will not” list of actions.

The work to follow in 2014/15 will include implementation of the h&S Standard, reviewing/ re-writing/deletion of procedures and a follow-up audit for feedback and ascertaining improvement in the Maturity index baseline.