ABSTRACT

Accidents or incidents commonly occurring in industries include both labor injuries and facility failures caused by human performance problems. Both labor injuries and facility failures are somewhat different with regard to causalities, complexity, and the scale of consequences; however, the frequency with which they occur is surely linked to workers’ safety consciousness and organizational factors or commitments that promote safety environments and reduce accidents. Reason (1997) suggested that lost time injury frequency (LTIF) would not be indicative of facility failure frequency. This assertion is thought to be true in one respect, because countermeasures and reactive actions for each of them should necessitate quite different considerations. Increased efforts to improve individuals’ safety consciousness and avoid violations is necessary to reduce LTIF, whereas more emphasis on detecting overall system defects is important for reducing facility failures. The differences between reducing LTIF and reducing facility failures may depend on how practitioners give weight according to the extent

of their industrial hazards. Their phenotypes are different, but their genotypes derive from the same origin. The likelihood of producing original defects in barriers that will lead to facility failure does not seem to differ much from that of committing labor accidents for sharp end in the same company. Exemplary domestic companies realized and continued a low level of accident rates for both labor injuries and facility failure. One of the most basic determinants seems to be the extent to which safety culture is created and maintained within organizations. The performance of companies with excellent safety records, such as DuPont Company, Qantas Airways, and Shell Oil Company, suggests the importance of eliminating both phenotypes.