Functional Safety Culture: The Secret to Sustainable Performance
What is safety culture and how does it help you?
Functional safety activities are non-negotiable in high-risk industries. Risks need to be mitigated, operational reliability enhanced, product failures with possible far-reaching consequences prevented. But “getting there” is not only about satisfying regulatory requirements – it extends beyond standards and technical solutions, and involves ideology, mindset, knowledge, values and practices within an organization – i.e. it calls for an effective safety culture.
How to build and sustain a functional safety culture in your organization
The safety culture is not to be assumed and it is not something that occurs by chance or spontaneously, but it is rather planned for and implemented by a deliberate effort. Within an organization, it reflects its attitude towards safety, from top to bottom and across all levels. All functions, disciplines, teams, and yes – processes, need to be aligned as a driving force in defining a trustworthy environment for developing safety critical products. A strong safety culture means prioritizing safety in the product lifecycle. It becomes ingrained into the company’s ethos and involves sharing a commitment, responsibility, and proactive behaviours across all levels of the organization, constituting a core part of the company’s identity, influencing decisions and actions. It ensures that the safety processes are not meant to be an afterthought, a fire-fighting, but opposite to that, farming, an integrated process in the product life-cycle.
What characterizes a strong safety culture?
Successful process of building up a robust functional safety culture includes following key aspects:
Management tailoring and optimization: Planning, coordinating, monitoring of progress, and other key management tasks should be performed properly and according to the company’s needs. Time and effort should be invested to optimize the safety culture so that it fits the specific needs.
Integration into processes: Fostering functional safety culture becomes easier when an organization has clear safety policies and procedures that are embedding safety considerations into all stages of product development, “from cradle to grave”. For safety assessments, safety manuals and specific guidelines should be outlined, complying with applicable standards without shortcuts or cherry-picking. They should be easily accessible and updated regularly to reflect new insights or regulations changes. This helps employees because it specifies the expectations, supports an easier decision-making, and guides them towards enforcing these policies.
Nataša Simanić John, Functional Safety Consultant
Whether you are just starting out or looking to enhance existing practices, investing in a strong safety culture is one of the most impactful steps your organization can take. At Lorit Consultancy, we support companies across high-risk industries in embedding functional safety into their processes, teams, and mindset. Contact us to learn more.
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