The 115th Safety Caravan was held at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works in Wadasaki-cho, Hyogo-ku, Kobe, on November 27, 2009.

An audience of 81 people, consisting of Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works employees and employees from affiliated companies, attended the session.

Mr. Shigero Masamori, head of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works, gave the opening address prior to the main presentation.

Good morning. I would like to begin by thanking the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute for hosting today’s safety caravan lecture and group discussion.

I would also like to thank Professor Yagi from Osaka University’s Center for the Study of Communication-Design for taking time from her busy schedule to join us.

In our morning session, Professor Yagi will give a presentation on “Thinking About Human Factors From a Communications Standpoint.” In the afternoon session, she will lead a group discussion with members of our design, production, construction, after-sales service, QA, and QC departments on human errors resulting from a lack of communications and human errors caused by assumptions. I believe this is a tremendous opportunity for our employees to consider and deliberate at length on human errors.

Our facility is involved in all phases of nuclear power plant construction, from design and manufacturing to quality control, construction, and after-sales service. As such, we engage in diligent training — along with the promotion of communication to ensure instructions and confirmations are reliably carried out — to safeguard against non-conformities, particularly with respect to first-time construction operations, infrequent construction operations, and construction operations with significant alterations from conventional operations. During Quality Month this month, we ran a number of activities to boost quality at the facility. Today’s safety caravan is an event that ties in nicely with Quality Month. I hope you will make use of this lecture and group discussion to further enhance our facility’s nuclear power safety activities.

Again, thank you Professor Yagi and the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute for visiting us today.

Following the opening address, Professor Ekou Yagi from Osaka University’s Center for the Study of Communication-Design gave a presentation entitled “Thinking About Human Factors From a Communications Standpoint.”

The presentation contained the following salient points.

Communications is said to be vital in reducing human error. Sustaining favorable communications is key to reducing human errors that lead to accidents and other problems. And here communications does not mean just communications between supervisors and their staff or between coworkers; it also means communications within groups and organizations and communications with other organizations and with the general public.

To achieve smooth, fluid communications, one must keep in mind that dealing with other people is like dealing with different cultures; one must assume that your communication partners have diverse values and contexts.

Also important is to acquire the art of listening, such as using open-ended questions and pressing for understanding while deferring objections.

Communication is essential to reduce rule violations, which are cited as a leading cause of human errors. “Know why” education explaining the background leading to the rules’ formation is crucial, as is consistent compliance with all rules, including safety rules, and revisions to the rules themselves.

Corporations with good safety records share a number of common points when it comes to communications. These points are useful references for us.

 Some key top-down points are communicating management’s dedication to safety, clarifying the scope of responsibilities, engaging in visible safety-first practices, and appointing workplace managers as point people on safety. Some bottom-up points are providing models of ideal activities, adopting simple and efficient safety methods, providing feedback to proposals, taking proactive measures tailored to the workplace’s unique circumstances, demonstrating the necessity and benefits of safe practices, and trying any and all possible activities to instill workplace safety.

Another important action to reduce human error is to regularly measure safety.
For example, conducting a multifaceted survey on safety can be utilized to regularly evaluate safety levels in a corporation as well as to raise awareness and interest in organizational safety.

Finally, it is important to consider changing the criteria of accidents and problems.

As one desire is satisfied, people’s desires only expand and diversify. Similarly, views on technology and safety change over the years.

What I mean is that when society determines what is safe, the decision is much more powerful in many ways than defining safety numerically with technology. I believe this trend will continue to strengthen in the future.

Comments from the questionnaires conducted after the presentation:

•  This was an excellent opportunity for us to review our everyday activities. It will be useful in enhancing our activities.
•  The presentation made me realize again how we should deal with safety. By taking a third-party perspective, I was able to confirm whether measures to prevent reoccurrences are currently in place.
•  The event was an opportunity to consider human error for a full day.
•  The lecture reconfirmed the importance of communications, since many non-conformities and accidents are preventable with the right approach to communications. I was impressed by the speaker’s expression that communication is an act of listening.
•  I was able to understand the basic approaches to communications.

Safety information exchange session

At the safety information exchange session, Professor Yagi, representatives of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and officials from JANTI engaged in a group discussion based on case studies of “human errors resulting from a lack of communications” and “human errors caused by assumptions” that had occurred in the past at the Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works prior to the safety caravan event.