Globalisation and safety-critical systems in Europe
Résumé
Safety-critical systems such as chemical or nuclear powerplants, hospitals, railways, or aircraft have been studied now for more than 40 years, with major contributions in the 1980s. In the meantime, the operating landscape of safety-critical systems has considerably evolved and globalisation is one key concept to grasp one core feature of these evolutions. One question is “How does globalisation affect process safety?” To help answer this question, the chapter conceptualises globalisation through several trends (i.e. digitalisation, externalisation, standardisation, financialisation, self-regulation) shaping “networks of networks,” then illustrates this with a case study. The case study briefly indicates how the plant of a medium-sized company in the chemical industry evolved within ten years between the 2000s and the 2010s towards properties of networked organisations by introducing automation, workflows, new organisational structure, and a higher level of subcontracting. The chapter briefly discusses these transformations in relation to process safety performance.