Paul Swuste is an associate professor of the Safety Science Group of the Delft University of Technology (DUT), The Netherlands. He has a MSc degree in Biochemistry from the University in Leyden and finished his Ph.D. thesis 'Occupational Hazards and Solutions' in 1996 at DUT. From 1980 onwards he is working at the Safety Science Group and engaged in research concerning risk assessments of various occupational hazards, and quality assessments of risk management systems of various industries. Regularly he publishes on these topics both in international and in national scientific journals, and is member of scientific committees of various (inter)national scientific conferences.
Objectives: Can process safety indicators provide insight and knowledge on both current and future safety levels of a process or company? And if so, which process indicators are eligible?. Method: The study is limited to original English and Dutch documents and articles in the scientific and professional literature. Results and discussion: Indicators for process safety can provide insight into safety levels of a process or company, but it is clear the 'silver bullet' has not yet been found. In secondary literature a difference is made between leading and lagging safety indicators. Primary literature questions this distinction, as well as the quantification of safety indicators. Safety Indicators for management and organization have an ambiguous relationship with latent errors and conditions, which are once and again mentioned in retrospective safety analyses of major accidents. Indicators for occupational safety do not necessarily have a relationship with process safety. In addition, it can be expected that regulators of major hazard companies will enforce to identify and implement both lagging and leading indicators, and anchor these indicators in a safety management system. Therefore, the subject ‘safety indicators’ will remain in the spotlight.