Leading and lagging indicators for safety of large-scale socio-technical systems

Kitamura, Masaharu*; Oba, Kyoko  ; Yoshizawa, Atsufumi*

The central issue for application of resilience engineering for maintaining and improving safety of large-scale socio-technical systems, i.e. use of appropriate set of performance indicators, is discussed in this paper. In order to supplement the conventional approaches to safety management largely based on lagging indicators, incorporation of process-based leading indicators can be a natural and logical solution. However, actual implementation of dependable leading indicators is often hindered by practical difficulties in defining and validating a candidate set of leading indicators. This report summarizes observations from our preliminary attempt to resolve the key issue of incorporating appropriate leading indicators within the framework of resilience engineering.