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A Knowledge oriented Resilience Assessment Framework
A Knowledge oriented Resilience Assessment Framework
Denilson Sell1,2,3, Paulo Selig2,3, Eduardo Giugliani4, Heron Trierveiler3, Viviane Schneider3, José Todesco2,3, Aran
Morales3
ESAG, Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
PPEGC, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Instituto Stela, Florianópolis, Brazil
TECNOPUC, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
denilson@stela.org.br
pauloselig@gmail.com
giugliani@pucrs.br
heronjt@gmail.com
viviane@stela.org.br
tite@stela.or.gbr
aran@stela.org.br
Abstract: Complexity and instability make it difficult to predict and deal with elements that negatively impact
performance and safety in sociotechnical systems. Resilience Engineering and Human Factors are scientific and
practical approaches that contribute to the design and assessment of complex systems, while considering the
interactive relationship among humans, works, and artifacts. Despite the continuous interest of the academia
and the industry in the relationship between knowledge, human factors, resilience, and safety, there is a lack
of models that can assess resilience and identify critical knowledge to improve resilient performance and
safety. This article presents a framework with elements that condition resilient responses, and knowledge
engineering tools to capture and analyse workers' perceptions and to support the analysis of safety events.
They contribute a new model of evaluation and development of knowledge-based organizational resilience.
The results can serve as a basis for knowledge management strategies, consolidate a safety-oriented culture,
improve non-technical skills, and contribute to the prevention of accidents and incidents.
1. INTRODUCTION
In complex sociotechnical systems, such as the oil and gas industry, where occasional accidents are critical for
potential human, social, environmental, and economic damage, human factors deserve special attention, as
they are essential for risk management and safety. In several sectors, there is a growing interest in Human
Factors as an interdisciplinary research field, which addresses the interactive relationship among humans,
works, and artifacts, and the study of the systemic elements that condition human performance, with a focus
on efficiency and accident prevention (Sheridan, 2008).
Dekker et al. (2006) stated that accidents result from a confluence of conditions and events that are normally
associated with the search for success, but, when combined, can cause failures. Thus, traditional safety
engineering methods, based on prediction and decomposition, call for alternatives, since these characteristics
are no longer common in today's complex sociotechnical systems (Lundberg & Johansson, 2015). In this
respect, Resilience Engineering (RE) is an alternative approach to the design and assessment of response
capabilities of complex systems. They involve the analysis of the interactive relationship among humans,
works, and artifacts, from design to operation and control of the system, considering not only the absence of
negative aspects, but also the presence of positive ones (Hollnagel, 2014).
However, despite a significant progress in the last decades, these disciplines lack reference models that
provide a roadmap for analysing human factors and the resilience potential in complex sociotechnical systems
(Nemeth & Hollnagel, 2014). Current models, such as the Resilience Assessment Grid (Hollnagel, 2010),
Training for Operational Resilience Capabilities (Grøtan et al., 2016), and the Resilience Measurement Index
(Petit et al., 2013) have gaps in terms of key knowledge resources, integration among systemic factors that
determine human performance, and constructs relative to resilient performance (Patriarca & Bergstrom,
2017).
In fact, the study of the relationship among knowledge, human factors, resilience potential, and safety events
continues to arouse interest in academia and in different industrial sectors (Salmon et al. 2012; Katsakiori et
al., 2009). Hence, there are three elements that pose a research challenge: i) how to qualify human factors and
knowledge resources that condition resilient responses?; ii) how to analyse the conditions of these factors and
resources to take actions and make investments assertively to promote safety?; and iii) how to continuously
develop learning on the basis of accidents and positive conditions that make operations safer despite such a
great deal of unpredictability in the daily routine of such operations?
Knowledge management (KM) and Knowledge Engineering (KE) offer methods and tools that can support: i)
the transformation of operational data into knowledge; ii) the representation of knowledge and human factors
that determine resilient responses and; iii) the allocation of knowledge resources to enable organizations to
deal with complexity and risks (Neaga, 2010). For Apgar (2006), KM promotes the development of knowledge
to assist employees and organizations in decision-making, transforming unexpected events into moments of
learning and growth, thus offering a repertoire for understanding the nature of risks.
Based on an interdisciplinary approach that involves concepts, methods, and techniques of RE, KM and KE, and
various disciplines related to humanities and social sciences, this article presents a framework to support the
analysis of human factors that condition resilient performance. The proposed framework enables a systemic
approach to factors to support decision-making and underpin actions that may affect the resilience potential
and mitigate risks and accidents in risky industries. The article discusses safety and resilience from the
perspective of knowledge management and engineering, the research strategy, and the framework set to
support the analysis of resilience and human factors in integrated operations in the oil and gas industries.
Finally, it reports the results and conclusions of the research.
1
https://www.iogp.org/
2
https://www.era.europa.eu/
3
https://www.anl.gov/
4
https://www.iaea.org/
5
https://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/
Figure 1: Organization of the factors in the knowledge model and information sources applied in the case study
In order to represent the model's structure, Figure 2 shows the breakdown of the factors associated with the
‘Technical Skills’ factor, highlighting the associated factors ‘Knowledge repertoire for adaptation’. The model
describes each associated factor, and suitable data collection methods to support the observation and analysis
by different instruments are identified and explored in the framework's collection strategy.
To facilitate the interpretation of the factors and the application of the model to knowledge systems, it was
represented by a domain ontology (Schreiber et al., 1999), which describes the factors through the SKOS
model. The strategy of organizing the factors ontologically facilitates the creation of different aspects and
hierarchies of analysis; for example, the factors can be explored through the taxonomies established in the
HFACS (Wiegmann & Shappell, 2003) or Accimap (Rasmussen & Svedung, 2000) methods.
Each factor in the model is represented by a set of properties and relationships to enable processing of data -
from potential information sources - on the perceptions of workers and on safety events. The relationships
between the factors are expressed ontologically through specialization/generalization relationships, such as is-
a, or is-a-special-kind-of, resulting in a hierarchical order of concepts. Such relationships are supported in the
SKOS model through the properties broader and narrower, allowing, for example, the association between the
factors ‘Knowledge availability’ and ‘Knowledge repertoire for adaptation’ with the ‘Technical Skills’ factor.
Ontology also allows the characterization of the model's factors to facilitate data mining, such as transcripts of
workers’ interviews, reports of focus groups, and reports on safety events. Therefore, for each factor,
associated terms, classification heuristics, and text excerpts were established. The next section addresses such
model, presenting the results of its application in the analysis of accident investigation reports.
Figure 2: Main factors of the model
The framework model facilitates the analysis of the factors that condition resilient performance from different
data sources. Important information about accidents, incidents, occupational health records, among others, is
usually found in documents, but dispersed among thousands of paragraphs of poor value to decision-makers,
making it difficult to search, sort, analyse, and extract knowledge on human factors. In accident investigation
reports, for example, the qualification of latent factors in accidents is of paramount importance.
The framework module on ‘safety event analysis’ consists of a knowledge system that applies text mining
techniques and natural language processing. Text mining is a synonym for ‘knowledge discovery in texts’
(Benoit, Kenneth, & Nulty. 2016).
There are several techniques and methods that can be used in text mining and such choice depends on the
purpose of textual analysis. In this application, statistical and semantic techniques were used. The first stage of
document analysis involves the application of ontology-based terms and heuristics to the factors to find
fragments in the documents. Then, ontology was applied to the process of fragment classification by analysing
the closer factors, considering information about the properties and the relationships among the ontological
factors. This process of analysis and classification is based on the studies of Nagarajan et al. (2006) and
Allahyari et al. (2014).
The process of document analysis allows accounting for the frequency of occurrence of the factors in the
analysed contents (as shown in Figure 4) and establishing correlation of human factors and types of accidents.
The conditions for evaluation of the knowledge model factors through the indicators and inferences produced
by knowledge systems allow learning about the effectiveness of investments in promoting safety and reveal
the potential risks not prioritized by current action plans. Moreover, knowledge is explored at the level of
employees, work design and organizational policies, enhancing feedback about the strategy of knowledge
management and promotion of organizational learning in complex organizations with high risk associated with
their operations.
Figure 4: Analysis of latent factors in accident investigation report
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was carried out with the support of the National Agency for Oil, Natural Gas, and Biofuels, Brazil
(ANP), through resources from the R, D&I Clauses - Regulation n. 03/2015 (processes: 2016/00187-1 and
2019/00105-3). This study was also financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de
Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) Finance Code 001.
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