Management systems and safety culture; reflections and suggestions for research

Management systems can be seen as the software of an organisation. Present views on managements systems have emerged from several sources and have now been integrated into the guiding documents produced by IAEA. A discussion of the new documents has in Sweden been initiated within the Vattenfall Nordic Production Safety Management Institute (NSMI), which recently has been established to support the production units in Sweden. The paper starts with a brief description of NSMI and its main tasks. Management systems are then discussed in more detail to suggest research needs within management systems and safety managements. A conclusion of the paper is that a better understanding of the structure and management systems is needed to remove present difficulties in the application of management systems at the nuclear power plants.