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A Report of Working with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Safety, Reliability and Risk Analysis: Beyond the Horizon – Steenbergen et al. (Eds) © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00123-7 Safety management within Task Force Uruzgan: A report of working with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Matthijs Moorkamp & Eric-Hans Kramer Netherlands Defense Academy, Breda, The Netherlands Coen van Gulijk & Ben Ale Safety Science, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands ABSTRACT: In this paper we present a conceptualization of safety management that is based on the cybernetic concepts of “controllability” and “control capacity”. In particular, we explore what this con- ceptualization means for safety management of the Dutch Army’s UAV unit that was part of Task Force Uruzgan (TFU) in the years 2006–2007 and 2008–2009. In this research we applied a qualitative research strategy. We conducted 20 interviews, 13 with employees of the UAV unit and 7 with key TFU-partners with whom the unit had to cooperate. We analyzed the interviews by means of the concepts developed in the theoretical framework. By going back and forth between theory and practice, we show that it was rather problematic for the unit to develop controllability and operate safely. We conclude with a reflection on a safety management strategy for this particular unit and the relevance of our conceptualization for other organizations. 1 INTRODUCTION Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAV’s. Within TFU they flew with the Sagem-Sperwer UAV in the Recently, the Dutch Defense organization has periods 2006–2007 and 2008–2009. In this period conducted a comprehensive expeditionary mission the unit conducted three tours within TFU. We aim in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. From 2006 until 2010 to reconstruct 107’s experiences on operating safely Task Force Uruzgan (TFU) was responsible for with UAV’s in TFU’s expeditionary organizational reconstruction and security duties in the Uruzgan network. This paper presents the study in several province. TFU was part of NATO’s ISAF forces. steps. Firstly, we construct a theoretical framework Next to the 1500 Dutch soldiers, the Task Force that aims to depict our perspective on the concept consisted of Australian troops. The Dutch of safety management for organizations such as the government depicted the mission in Uruzgan as military expeditionary organization. Secondly, we a reconstruction mission. However, over the four introduce the methodology that we employed to years of its deployment TFU has engaged in study 107’s experiences. Thirdly we will present our numerous combat activities with opposing parties results and analysis. Fourthly, we will reflect on a in the Uruzgan province. possible safety management strategy and the study’s Although the Dutch Ministry of Defense relevance for organizations with similar challenges. excludes operations that are related to enemy activ- ity from its safety management system (ministry of Defense, 2010), we argue that managing safety of 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK operations is particularly relevant for the expedi- tionary organization. Recent friendly-fire acci- This section will present our theoretical perspective dents highlight this relevance. on the concept of safety management that forms The study reported in this paper is to be regarded a framework for studying the experiences of as a first step in developing an understanding of 107 Aerial Systems battery. safety management in expeditionary conditions. The traditional safety management concept We studied one particular unit within TFU, the is mainly originating from so-called high-risk 107th Aerial Systems battery. This unit is the only organizations (Hale, 2003). These organizations unit within the Dutch MoD that operates with produce or work with hazardous materials such 3127 as in the process industry, mining and utilities. 2.1 Conceptualizing safety management In our interpretation, these traditional high-risk by using the “controllability” concept organizations, however, predominantly operate Operating safely in a dynamically complex envi- in a relative stable operational environment that ronment is problematic because the nature of presents the organization with a fixed set of the mission area is characterized by the presence familiar problems. Consequently, the logic of the of opposing forces. Therefore, the mission area is traditional concept safety management is mostly inherently unsafe. However, fighting that results defined in terms of creating stability. For exam- in wounded or killed Dutch soldiers as a result of ple, Leveson, Marias, Dulac & Caroll (2009) Taliban fire cannot be qualified as a symptom of define ensuring safety (i.e. safety management) unsafe operations; these events are the unfortunate as a control problem. They argue that trying to but inherent results of the specific characteristics achieve safe operations is to be done by creating of the military job. Friendly fire that occurs while sufficient constraints in order to keep behavior fighting the Taliban can be qualified as unsafe of elements between predetermined boundaries operations. That is, the units of a particular mili- (p. 242). tary organization are not meant to interact in such Applying these premises to the expedition- a dysfunctional way. In our interpretation, safety ary organization is problematic for two reasons. management should not be directed at the prob- Firstly, the environment in which the expedi- lems associated with the inherently unsafe char- tionary organization operates can be defined as acteristics of the military job. Instead it should dynamically complex (Kramer, 2007). This means be aimed at the characteristics of the (military) that instead of providing the organization with organization in which unsafe dysfunctional inter- a stable flow of familiar problems, the operating actions take place. environment confronts the expeditionary organi- Christis (1998) distinguishes between definitions zation with a varying flow of unfamiliar problems. that are based on symptoms and definitions that Secondly, for each expeditionary mission, units are based on causal mechanisms. A definition of are selected and assembled from Army, Navy and safety management cannot be based on symptoms Air Force “parent” organizations to contribute to because the absence of a symptom of unsafety is expeditionary organizations (De Waard & Kramer, no reliable indicator for the absence its source, the 2008). Each expeditionary mission requires a spe- risk. Therefore we need to base our definition on a cific combination of functionalities, which leads causal mechanism that connects a source of risks to to expeditionary organizations that differ sub- consequences for safety. De Sitter (2000) provides stantially in organizational layout, tasks and goals. us with such a causal mechanism by explicating Even, within a particular expeditionary organiza- that characteristics of an organization represent an tion, the functional layout of patrol teams some- organization’s source for its successful adaptation times varied per assignment (Kramer, De Waard & to environmental variation. De Graaff, 2012). De Sitter defines the organization as a social Creating safety, in the dynamically complex mis- interaction network. In that network the activities sion area, therefore, cannot be about creating pre- are grouped and coupled, or structured, to determining boundaries of safe behavior because particular workstations such as P in Figure 1. the underlying organizational configurations for In order to match variance in the environment which such boundaries should be defined are con- with variance in the organizational network, the tinuously changing. Consequently, we need to base our definition of safety management on an under- standing of organizational control for the dynamic complex environment. Following Ashby (1956), control in highly vari- able (i.e. dynamic complex) environments can be interpreted as: the more options an organization has to come up with varying activities, the better it will be at operating in and adapting to a dynami- cally complex environment. De Sitter (2000) refers to this ability as “controllability”. The next section will explicate our definition of safety management by means of the concept of controllability. Firstly however, we will elabo- rate on safety because especially for the military expeditionary organization, operating “safely” is rather problematic. Figure 1. De Sitter’s model of interference (2000, p. 82). 3128 workstations of that network are confronted Safety management by using the controllability with requests for interaction that challenges, and concept is therefore defined as creating safety interferes with, the way work is done until that by reducing the structural causal potential for moment. This is referred to as disturbance. disturbance. For absorbing a particular disturbance, the workstations within the organizational network need to possess “control capacity” in order to 3 METHODOLOGY develop controllability (De Sitter, 2000). This means that the workstations need to have the In the previous section we conceptualized safety options to solve a particular problem internally or management as the ability of an organization to pass the problem on to other workstations in the develop controllability in its particular operating network that on their turn have to solve the prob- environment. We argued that this ability is charac- lem either internally or externally. De Sitter (2000) terized by the capacities of workstations to absorb therefore distinguishes between internal and exter- disturbance.
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