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Suggested Citation:"Contents." Transportation Research Board. 2012. TRB Special Report 309: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Offshore Safety and Environmental Management Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13434.
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Page 19
Suggested Citation:"Contents." Transportation Research Board. 2012. TRB Special Report 309: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Offshore Safety and Environmental Management Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13434.
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Page 20

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Contents Summary 1 1 Introduction 11 Study Context 12 Study Objective and Charge 16 Organization of the Report 17 2 Role of Safety and Environmental Management Systems in Establishing a Culture of Safety 18 Will SEMS Promote a Culture of Safety? 19 Guiding Questions for Evaluation or Audit 26 Assessing the Effectiveness of SEMS and Its Effect on Culture 27 A Word of Hope 29 3 Methods for Assessing Effectiveness 32 Potential Assessment Methods 32 Measuring Trends 41 Summary 41 4 Existing Approaches for Assessing Safety Management Systems 43 U.S. Regulatory Agencies 44 International Regulatory Organizations 55 Center for Offshore Safety: A Self-Policing Safety Organization 67 Summary 70

5 Role of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in Evaluating Safety and Environmental Management Systems Programs 72 Inspections 72 Audits 74 Ensuring Effectiveness 85 6 Conclusions and Recommended Approach 89 Conclusions 89 Recommended Approach 94 Resources Required 105 References 106 Study Committee Biographical Information 111

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TRB Special Report 309: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Offshore Safety and Environmental Management Systems Get This Book
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TRB Special Report 309: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Offshore Safety and Environmental Management Systems recommends that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) take a holistic approach to evaluating the effectiveness offshore oil and gas industry operators' Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) programs. According to the report, this approach should, at a minimum, include inspections, audits by the operator and BSEE, key performance indicators, and a whistleblower program.

SEMS is a safety management system(SMS) aimed at shifting from a completely prescriptive regulatory approach to one that is proactive, risk based, and goal oriented in an attempt to improve safety and reduce the likelihood that events similar to the April 2010 Macondo incident will reoccur.

According to the committee that produced the report, it is not possible for a regulator to create a culture of safety in an organization by inspection or audit; that culture needs to come from within the organization. To be successful, the tenets of SEMS must be fully acknowledged and accepted by workers, motivated from the top, and supported throughout the organization and must drive workers' actions.

The report also notes that BSEE can encourage and aid industry in development of a culture of safety by the way it measures and enforces SEMS. The Committee believes BSEE should seize this opportunity to make a step change in safety culture by adopting a goal based holistic approach to evaluating the effectiveness of SEMS programs.

In recommending a holistic approach to evaluating the effectiveness of SEMS programs, the report explores in detail SEMS' role in helping to develop a culture of safety, highlights the pros and cons of various methods of assessing the effectiveness of a SEMS program, and investigates existing approaches for assessing the SMS programs of various U.S. and international regulatory agencies whose safety mandates are similar to that of BSEE.

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