Incremental Safety Practices - Erik Hollnagel

Incremental Safety Practices provides a systematic account of practical projects and programmes that have contributed to ensure that every-day work goes well. It illustrates the benefits of an incremental safety approach that unites concerns for productivity and safety, rather than juxtaposing them, and relates practical experiences from managing complex industrial and social systems in the spirit of both Resilience Engineering and Safety-II.

This book presents a number of examples to illustrate how the incremental approach to safety has been realised worldwide and applied to several fields of practice. The book begins with an incremental safety manifesto. It provides a characterisation and assessment of the current situation regarding safety and safety management, and proposes the logical alternative to target zero, which is target centum (Latin for one hundred), meaning that 100% of all work activities should go well, and summarises and contrasts the perspectives of Safety-I and Safety-II. The chapters convey specific incremental safety activities that have taken place within a broad range of industries and geographical locations, and detailed comparative analyses by Hollnagel and Slater, identifying the common motivations, methods, evidence and actions that provide the knowledge that readers need to be able to understand, adapt and successfully apply incremental safety practices in their own work context.

Written at an intermediate professional level, but intentionally not technical, this book is for all middle managers, senior managers, independent consultants and safety professionals concerned with health, safety and environment.