Mutual misconceptions between designers and operators of hazardous installations

This document provides a guide to research that has been conducted on the misconceptions that designers of hazardous installations sometimes have about operators and the operating environment, and the misconceptions that operating and maintenance staff have about designers, the design process or design intentions. These misconceptions are central to many accidents and incidents, and it seems possible that knowledge about how past misconceptions have contributed to past failures could be used to forestall future failures. The first part of the document provides a simple process and some resources to apply this research. It helps operators test whether they have misconceptions about the design. And it helps designers test whether they have misconceptions about operations. The second part is a description of the research, the background, methods, results and conclusions. collaboration with a team at Loughborough University. This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive. Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks are due to the EPSRC who funded the work under grant GR/N11247, to R E Hibberd who worked on the study at the University of Bath, to P W H Chung and B P Das who worked on a parallel study at Loughborough University, and to R Miles of the HSE. Thanks are also due to staff in the companies that helped evaluate the outcomes of the work.