Keywords

11.1 Introduction

An important literature on system safety theory focuses on technical and organizational phenomena found in high-reliability organizations (HROs). The following observations of industrial settings typical of HRO conceptual profiles and system properties were based on intensive case studies of large-scale organizations with very stable infrastructure. The empirical industrial field is not identical across nuclear power plant operations, businesses, and manufacturing situations, and so far this approach has not been replicated in other types of settings where fluctuating infrastructure gives rise to changing workspaces.

Underground infrastructures are not specifically dedicated and adapted to production: they are at once workplaces and work materials (extraction). Space below ground is defined by techniques, practices, and values, both an “arena”—that is, a physical space that constrains actions—and a “setting” in the sense that it can be rearranged materially or at least mentally by the individuals working in it, depending on their needs [13].

In this fluctuating, dark environment, to what extent does visualization help to maintain safety requirements? How does visualization help with work?

This case study of the extension of a Paris underground metro line shows that pictorial representations play a daily role as a mobile and moral authority in the infinite reconfiguration of space. Based on the observation that pictorial representation can be used to drive and organize activities, this chapter will highlight the ways in which these visual artefacts advance safety in three ways, by helping participants inhabit, discuss, and synchronize their workspaces.

11.2 Inhabiting the Space

The case of the metro line construction site combines activities taking place within a restricted perimeter, both above and below ground. As underground boundaries shift, those on the surface adapt. Ongoing territorial conflicts require that the borders of the workspace be constantly re-specified.

Updating representations through various maps and diagrams is therefore a constant necessity to help workers to identify potentially risky areas of coactivity, including the arrival of new hazards. This work of updating representations also requires organizational labour, an ongoing process that comes together as the work is being carried out. This necessitates a constant exchange of information, between graphics designed to represent a given phase of the work and the configuration of the work in situ as it is observed over the course of different worksite visits.

Maps, including the coordination maps among different stakeholders required by regulation, appear as “boundary objects” [16] in the management of coactivity.

These boundaries may become the subject of clashes over definition among different work teams, as a means of appropriating spaces in order better to adapt them to the demands of their work. In these cases, the maps bear the markings of the work teams’ adjustments to and clashes over these definitions (Fig. 11.1).

Fig. 11.1
A site plan depicts borders and hazards in the workspace. The access principle, Emprise S U D phase 1, emprise N O R D, emprise status, emprise A S N all have borders of circulation camions.

Site plans annotated to identify borders and hazards in work space

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At stake is more than workers’ ability to locate themselves spatially: they must also appropriate and adopt this space. Workers must inhabit the space both in their bodies and in their perceptions [5]. This inhabiting spans from individual experience to collective (family, group) management dynamics [4]. In this case, perception of the work space is not limited to the relation of the body to the machine [7, 18], but more broadly of the body to its environment. Pictorial representations help to make workspaces into familiar environments by integrating their codes and prohibitions.

Visual artefacts offered by management may aid in prevention actions, some of which may be seen as governing the conduct of operators (Fig. 11.2). This term refers to the capacity of visual representations to shape, guide or influence people’s behaviour. Here, the meaning of the word “conduct” goes beyond the idea of imposed direction, referring also to the way in which an individual behaves when guided by a sense of self-regulation [8].

Fig. 11.2
An illustration of visual aid for management recommendations comprises multiple pieces of art showing human workmanship or modifications.

Visual aid for management recommendations

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Beyond that, visual artefacts can also help workers to appropriate a space in order to improve their own attention to safety (Fig. 11.3). In addition to rules and formal descriptions, little notes written by workers make it possible to alert colleagues that certain points require special attention or to specify particular ways of doing things [3, 14].

Fig. 11.3
A photo of a text written on a paper and stuck at the workspace in the service of safety. The text is in a foreign language.

Little notes help appropriate workspaces in the service of safety

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This appropriation of space by workers [10] is not only professional. Inscriptions, graffiti, etc. help to make workspaces into familiar spaces, they contribute to collective effort while helping to minimize stresses that may discourage new workers or even drive them away [15].

Visual artefacts are also vectors of identity and pride in workspaces, helping to create a sense of permanence or territory (Fig. 11.4). It is not uncommon for workers to take pictures of their work, while others show pictures of previous work sites they are proud to have participated in. Interest and pride in the profession is a central element of stability—sometimes conveyed and maintained by a family environment [1]. Mutual acquaintance and attention paid to others is another contributing factor to safety [1, 9, 15].

Fig. 11.4
A photograph of an employee taking a photo of a workspace.

Pride in the work done

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11.3 Discussing the Space

11.3.1 Locating Strategic Space

The work of updating spaces is also a work of organizing activities as they are being carried out. It implies ongoing forward and backward movement between maps and graphics and the configuration of activity on the ground.

For example, a theoretical work schedule for a construction site developed and proposed during a competitive bidding process does not necessarily correspond to the actual work schedule once the building is actually underway [17]. Schedules do not account for the unexpected, the implication being that unexpected occurrences are linked to failure or diversions and therefore necessarily generated by others [6]. Local adjustments must take place after the space is discussed and debated to better organize it. Visual artefacts help to identify which deadlines must be met for the metro to be operational on time (Fig. 11.5).

Fig. 11.5
An illustration of strategic spaces identified in visual representation. 3 arrows point out to a broad line due to which the metro line work would be delayed.

Strategic spaces identified by a visual representation of the schedule

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11.3.2 Local Regulation

Companies must succeed in inhabiting spaces not only in fact but in speech, given the performative of the latter. For this reason, coordination meetings are a platform for debating the space–time of work, using visual artefacts as justification or support. These artefacts serve as a traceability instrument in support of speeches and other arguments. For example, if a company claims to have cleared a workspace before leaving, coordinators can use visual evidence to contest that claim.

Sketches and other diagrams, whether drawn up on a white board or scribbled on the back of an envelope, make it possible to consider as a collective the overall dynamic process of operations and the flow of activities. They make it possible to link techniques to organizations, which improves safety [12].

Visual artefacts help to build a narrative of one’s workspace, and at the same time, bolster the reliability of operations by improving their ability to adapt and adjust in the field, especially in high-tech contexts.

11.4 Synchronizing the Space

Situations such as the one studied here are characterized by a continuous flow of changes; operators inhabiting these territories transform them into spaces whose boundaries are not fixed, but always subject to transformations and re-actualizations [6]. These transformations do not operate according to the same logic. While the overall focus at the site is on the metro line under construction, this focus is supported by micro-movements and adjustments that occur over different types of time (Fig. 11.6): the rational chronological time expressed in the planning phase, unexpected time, political time (the metro must be operational by a certain date for the sake of the public), local residents’ time (they don’t want to be disturbed over the weekend while at the same time they want to be able to use the metro as soon as possible), the time of companies that want to meet market demands to ensure profitability.

Fig. 11.6
A photograph of 2 employees at a workplace.

Different spatio-temporal frames on the same site

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These temporalities and temporal perceptions [11] are different for different groups of people, and these dyscronies [2] make it complicated to organize the flow of activities in workspaces, creating regulatory deficits and making it difficult to contain a task and its hazards in a single, controllable space–time.

This being the case, visual artefacts facilitate temporal synchronization, allowing for better fluidity of activities and the coordination of work spaces. Drawings, diagrams and sketches help to build bridges among different temporalities, creating alignment between human and non-human elements, between field activities and Office requirements.

Coordination meetings are practical situations that make it possible to identify, propose, record, and formalize any deviation from the planned-for model as the construction work progresses, in particular situations of coactivity. In this context, visual artefacts function as traceability instruments, as a “memory” of the construction site, understood as a series of photographs taken as the site’s conditions and stakes evolve.

At a minimum, visual artefacts are instruments that make it possible to produce both a temporality and a memory for a given site. Visual artefacts are part of local site regulation [14].

11.5 Conclusion

Maintaining safety in spaces that are constantly reconfiguring requires constant updating and reorganization, which is aided by visual artefacts.

There is a vast and varied literature on human reliability, ranging from human factors engineering to socio-technical systems. This literature has already highlighted that high-reliability organizations must constantly achieve extraordinary levels of operational reliability, while working constantly to improve it.

In this context, visual representations of workspaces offer an opportunity to analyse and organize workspaces, even as they succeed each other and change over time.

For the researcher, at least, these visual artefacts shed light on the practice of these territories: their movements, direction, and temporality; how operators inhabit these territories and transform them into spaces whose boundaries are not fixed, but always subject to transformation and re-actualization [6].