Methodology for the Determination of a Process Safety Culture Index and Safety Culture Maturity Level in Industries

A mature of safety culture is crucial to preventing and mitigating accidents, incidents, and unsafe behaviors in the process industry, so as to make it more sustainable and economically responsible. Measurement, investigation, and assessment of the safety culture using interviews, questionnaires, behavior observation, reviewing documentation, and its impact on the safety performances of an organization is complicated, challenging, and requires a commitment to all employees. The aim of this study was to propose a novel, unique semi-quantitative methodology for the determination of a total process safety culture index and parametric model of process safety culture maturity in an organization based on the Bradley model. The methodology includes a questionnaire concerning different process safety culture factors, calculation procedures, and a graphical tool. In addition, three quantitative survey indicators were proposed: indicators of direct communication, average communication time, and the applicability rate of the proposed changes by employees. A fully-developed total process safety culture index allows for identifying, hierarchizing, and benchmarking different factors of the safety culture among companies and sectors. Moreover, it will enable identifying the area of actions required to improve safety practices and elements applied to the organization analyzed. The proposed methodology was verified in a case study of one energy company with three locations in Poland and can be easily applied to different industrial fields, including logistics and warehousing, the food industry, the paper industry, security services, fire services, and environmental and other agencies.