Topic
Systems-Theory Safety
System safety and systems-theory accident analysis approaches.
Documents
- 20228 Jun
Human Factors information paper - Risk migration
Explains how operational trade-offs can gradually erode safety margins, using a well abandonment campaign involving offshore hydrocarbon gas venting. Examines deficient hazard assessment, equipment assurance and modification controls through systems theory, distinguishing possible explanations from verified findings. Introduces guided adaptability to support anticipation, coordinated responses and proactive learning.
- 2012
Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety
A practitioner-focused book explaining safety through systems theory and constraint enforcement rather than component reliability alone. It develops STAMP, STPA hazard analysis and CAST accident analysis, using varied cases and design examples. Guidance addresses human–automation interaction, safety-guided engineering, operational feedback, organisational responsibilities, management of change and safety culture.
- 1997
Risk management in a dynamic society: a modelling problem
This conceptual research paper models risk management as control across societal and organisational levels. It examines adaptive behaviour, competing objectives and migration towards safe operating boundaries, contrasting functional analysis with task sequences and causal trees. It argues for hazard-specific control models and explicit assumptions in probabilistic risk analysis.
- Undated
CAST Handbook: How to Learn More from Incidents and Accidents
This handbook teaches CAST, a systems-theory method for analysing accidents without assigning blame. It explains control-structure modelling, controller responsibilities, feedback, human decision contexts and systemic weaknesses. Chemical-plant, workplace and social-system cases illustrate the method, alongside guidance on recommendations, organisational adoption and checking whether improvements are effective.
- Undated
NASA System Safety Handbook, Volume 1
Workshop slides explain NASA’s objectives-led system safety framework, linking adequate safety principles to integrated safety analysis and risk-informed safety cases. They discuss allowance for unknown risks, life-cycle safety claims and the acquirer’s evaluation of evidence and uncertainty. The presentation draws on Volume 1 of NASA’s System Safety Handbook.
- Undated
NASA System Safety Handbook, Volume 2
Guidance for implementing NASA’s system safety framework through Acquirer and Provider roles. It combines integrated safety analysis, probabilistic requirements, safety margins and life-cycle risk management with structured safety cases. Worked examples illustrate reasonably practicable safety decisions, evidence assessment, modelling credibility and independent evaluation of assurance deficits.
- Undated
STPA Handbook
Practical handbook explaining System-Theoretic Process Analysis through loss identification, control-structure modelling, unsafe control actions and causal scenarios. It develops traceable safety constraints and integrates analysis into engineering, workplace safety and organisational design. Further chapters address assumption-based leading indicators, safety management systems and adoption through interdisciplinary teams and hands-on practice.
- Undated
Visualising Safety, an Exploration
An edited research volume examines how posters, accident models, interfaces, spatial models, network diagrams and films represent safety. Historical and field studies explore communication, design and organisational coordination, while conceptual chapters examine visual metaphors and functional signatures. Contributors question effectiveness evidence and highlight biases introduced by selection, omission and context.