History of Safety Management in the Process Industries

Video

History Safety Management: we have published a 30 minute video package that shows how safety management systems in the process and energy industries have developed during the course of the last 300 years. The YouTube video shown at the end of this page provides a short extract.

Historical Sequence

We can look at the development of the history of industrial safety programs using the 12 steps in the following sketch.

History Safety Management


The timeline starts early in the 19th century. Before then it is probably fair to say that safety was not a concern to most industrial managers. 

The steps in the timeline are:

  1. Safety as a Value
  2. ​Codes and Standards
  3. ​Workers' Compensation
  4. Occupational Safety
  5. Systems Analysis
  6. ​Regulations
  7. ​Management Systems
  8. Behavior-Based Safety
  9. Instrumentation
  10. Videos
  11. Culture
  12. Age of Limits