Interpreting weak signals with the knowledge of accidents: a case study in nuclear risk management
Résumé
In this paper, after defining what the ‘knowledge of accidents’ is, our contribution addresses how ‘knowledge of accidents’ can be used in practice to interpret ‘weak signals’ especially weaknesses in risk management. This research is supported by a case study: during an assessment of safety and radiation protec-tion management of nuclear power plant maintenance outages, conducted by IRSN, (a French public institute, i.e. the technical support organization that supports the nuclear safety authority (ASN)), IRSN experts have used the knowledge of accidents to conduct an organizational diagnosis.