Predictive Validity of Safety Leading Indicators: Empirical Assessment in the Oil and Gas Sector
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 142, Issue 10
Abstract
Improving safety performance is paramount to the success of oil and gas construction projects. Although considerable attention has been paid to developing and using new types of safety performance indicators, contractor safety has traditionally been measured and managed through lagging indicators. Alternatively, risk mitigation measures can be used to predict safety performance as leading indicators. Several research studies have been performed on safety leading indicators; however, no research has empirically validated the predictive validity of candidate indicators. To address this knowledge gap, empirical data were used to measure both potential safety leading and lagging indicators in an effort to test the hypothesis that variability in candidate safety leading indicators predicts variability in lagging indicators of safety performance. A total of 261 contractors were included in the study, with more than 60,000 data points. Using principal factor analysis, model building, and regression, factors with predictive power were identified. The predicted total recordable incident rate (TRIR) and severity rate (SR) provided strong correlation with the actual TRIR and SR, with coefficients of 0.7251 and 0.5338, respectively. The models of predictive TRIR and SR were validated and suggest a good fit when applied to new contractor safety data set. The models can be used as new safety leading indicators that provide warning signs for weakness in contractor safety performance. Consequently, clients can use the results to implement adaptive risk mitigation, reduce incidents, and continuously improve contractor safety performance. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by empirically identifying safety leading indicators, testing their efficacy, and validating the resulting models. This research set a foundation for establishing quantitative safety leading indicators in the construction industry in the future for other forms of project outcomes.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank participating oil and gas companies and University of Cambridge Engineering Department for providing guidance and support for this research. Additionally, special thanks to Prof. Campbell Middleton (Ph.D.), Chris Campbell (Ph.D.), and Jarrod Eska (Ph.D. candidate) for their contributions and suggestions.
References
Belsley, D., Kuh, E., and Welsch, R. (1980). Regression diagnostics: Identifying influential data and sources of collinearity, Wiley, New York.
Castillo, L., and Dorao, C. A. (2013). “Decision-making in the oil and gas projects based on game theory: Conceptual process design.” Energy Convers. Manage., 66, 48–55.
Cortada, J., Gordon, D., and Lenihan, B. (2010). The value of analytics in healthcare, IBM, Somers, NY.
de Vaus, D. (2002). Analyzing social science data, Sage, Brisbane, Australia.
Gordon, R. (2012). Applied statistics for the social and health sciences first, Routledge, New York.
Grabowski, M., Ayyalasomayajula, P., Merrick, J., Harrand, J. R., and Roberts, K. (2007a). “Leading indicators of safety in virtual organizations.” Saf. Sci., 45(10), 1013–1043.
Grabowski, M., Ayyalasomayajula, P., and Wang, H., et al. (2007b). “Accident precursors and safety nets: Initial results from the leading indicators of safety project.” SNAME, Ft Lauderdale, FL.
Greene, W. (2000). Econometric analysis, 4th Ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Hallowell, M. R., et al. (2013). “Proactive construction safety control: Measuring, monitoring, and responding to safety leading indicators.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 04013010.
Hamilton, L. (2013). Statistics with Stata version 12, 8th Ed., Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, Boston.
Hinze, J., Hallowell, M., and Baud, K. (2013a). “Construction-safety best practices and relationships to safety performance.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 04013006.
Hinze, J., Thurman, S., and Wehle, A. (2013b). “Leading indicators of construction safety performance.” Saf. Sci., 51(1), 23–28.
International Energy Agency. (2014). “World energy investment outlook.” Paris.
IOGP (International Association of Oil & Gas Producers). (2011). “Process safety—Recommended practice on key performance indicators.”, London.
ISNet. (2014). “ISNet: What we do.” 〈https://www.isnetworld.com/〉 (Dec. 22, 2014).
Jablonowski, C. J. (2011). “Identification of HSE leading indicators using regression analysis.” Society of Petroleum Engineers, Houston, 21–23.
OSHA. (2015). “OSHA injury and illness recordkeeping and reporting requirements.” 〈https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/〉 (Jan. 2, 2015).
Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organizational accidents, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, U.K.
Reiman, T., and Pietikäinen, E. (2012). “Leading indicators of system safety—Monitoring and driving the organizational safety potential.” Saf. Sci., 50(10), 1993–2000.
Thompson, B. (2010). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Toellner, J. (2001). “Improving safety and health performance: Identifying and measuring leading indicators.” Prof. Saf., 46, 42–47.
Ulanoff, L. (2014). Amazon knows what you want before you buy it, Times, Santa Barbara, CA.
University of Cambridge Press. (2014). “Cambridge dictionaries online (US).” Cambridge, U.K.
U.S. Department of Energy. (2009). “DOE standard human performance improvement handbook: Concepts and principles.” Washington, DC.
U.S. Energy Information Agency. (2013). “International energy outlook 2013.” 〈http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/pdf/0484(2013).pdf〉 (May 8, 2015).
van Kampen, J., van der Beek, D., and Groeneweg, J. (2014). “The value of safety indicators.” SPE Econ. Manage., 6(3), 131–140.
Wills, M. (2014). “Decisions through data: Analytics in healthcare.” J. Healthcare Manage., 59(4), 254–262.
Wooldridge, J. (2012). Introductory econometrics: A modern approach, 5th Ed., Cengage Learning, Cambridge, MA.
Wreathall, J. (2009). “Leading? Lagging? Whatever!” Saf. Sci., 47(4), 493–494.
Zeller, R., and Carmines, E. (1980). Measurement in the social sciences, 1st Ed., University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 28, 2015
Accepted: Feb 19, 2016
Published online: Apr 25, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 25, 2016
Published in print: Oct 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.