Safety culture assessment: A fuzzy model for improving safety performance in a radioactive installation

• A new method to assess safety culture.
• A Fuzzy Set Theory (FST) model based on leading edge indicators.
• Use of FST reduces the subjectivity of other safety culture assessment approaches.
• The method was applied in a radiopharmaceuticals dispatch package sector.
• The results indicated the weakness and strengths in organizational safety culture.

Culture is a complex concept and this paper is devoted to improving the safety culture in safe-critical organizations. The culture of any organization in the international nuclear industry is centered on safety. This reflects human awareness and the recognition that strict attention to safety is essential if the benefits of this form of power are to be realized. For a nuclear organization safety culture is the dominant aspect of the organizational culture. Assessing the safety culture of an organization is not easy because there is no simple indicator that measures its state. From the perspective of the nuclear power industry there is no consensus on the essential attributes of safety culture and suitable safety performance indicators. Furthermore, there are no commercially available safety culture tools that can satisfactorily assess the safety culture of an organization and most methods cannot fully solve the subjectivity of safety culture assessment. In this context, this paper presents a fuzzy model for safety culture assessment using safety performance indicators able to predict changes in an organization's safety performance. These indicators are based on six elements necessary for developing a safety culture: top-level commitment to safety, organizational learning, organizational flexibility, awareness, just culture and emergency preparedness. The model uses the concepts and properties of fuzzy set theory to model the indicators and to assess the results of their application. To exemplify its use we performed an exploratory case study on the radiopharmaceuticals package dispatch process of a Brazilian radioactive installation.