Safety Management
Jim Thomson has worked in Operations, Design Engineering, Project Management, Safety Management, and Regulator Liaison.
Failures and weaknesses of Safety Management and Safety Management Systems are the underlying causes of most accidents.
“I believe that independent, challenging high level peer review, done from a position of pragmatic understanding of the pressures facing front-line staff, is one of the best defences against failures and complacency in Safety Management.”
Jim’s experience includes:
- Shift manager on an operating nuclear power station.
- The specification of work control systems.
- Nuclear Safety Manager for a major plc.
- Carrying out safety audits and due diligence on oil platforms and refineries in the Indian Ocean, the Black Sea, the North Sea, Romania and Sudan.
Recent publications:
- Fukushima and its consequences, Nuclear Future, vol 8, 2012
- Emergency planning after Fukushima, Nuclear Future, vol 8, 2012
- Managing Ageing Plant – A Summary Guide, HSE, 2010
- Plant Ageing Study, HSE, 2010
- Overview of safety management processes (for managers)
- The Whatcom Falls Park pipeline rupture, 10 June 1999 (presentation, 2015)
The Mayak Plant, Chelyabinsk – A Brief Historical Review, Nuclear Future, vol 12, 2016
- Deepwater Horizon – failure of the blowout preventer (presentation 2016)
- The Equilon Anacortes coking plant accident 1998 (conference presentation at REFCOMM 2020)
- New Insights into the Saudia 163 Accident (Riyadh, 1980) (published 2020)
- The Boeing 737 Max accidents: bad design, failed regulation, and deceitfulness (presentation 2021)
- Hanford in the 1940s: The first plutonium separation plant Hanford in the 1940s NI download (2022)
- Linear No Threshold to be reconsidered v4 (presentation 2023)
- Pakistan, nuclear weapons, and proliferation FINAL (2023)