"Safety Beyond Numbers: Learning from Normal Work to Prevent Major Accidents"
"Safety Beyond Numbers: Learning from Normal Work to Prevent Major Accidents"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51473/rcmos.v1i2.2025.1369Keywords:
Occupational Safety; Normal Work; Human Factors; Risk Management; Safety Culture; Human Performance.Abstract
Occupational safety has traditionally been defined by the absence of accidents, creating the illusion that operations with low incident rates are intrinsically safe. This perspective proved inadequate in the face of disasters such as the Texas City refinery explosion (2005) and the Deepwater Horizon accident (2010), which occurred in operations considered safe by conventional metrics. This article proposes a paradigmatic shift through the concept of "Learning from Normal Work," which focuses on understanding successful daily activities rather than solely learning from failures. Using a qualitative methodology based on a systematic literature review and analysis of practical implementation cases in multinational companies, this study demonstrates how procedural deviations can be understood as necessary adaptations to actual work.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Felipe Abreu de Jesus , Félix Gustavo de Andrade Santos, Lis Quarantini de Souza Guimarães (Autor)
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