The public school in the news.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The public school in the news.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Design-Based Safety

Edd Gibson, PhD., P.E., is the director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. He is establishing a center to ensure that design safety will be part of every engineering degree. Traditionally, the fundamentals of ensuring safe design and construction methods have been absent from the programs at the various colleges and universities of engineering. At commencement, an individual who receives a degree in engineering has no marketable skills to ensure safe design or planning and organizing construction projects. AECOM, one of the largest engineering firms involved in both design and build, provides training on design-based safety for many of its engineers. The value of this program is substantial, as it prevents injury and death, reduces insurance costs and minimizes costly safety management activity on how to inspect, supervise and train their workforce to recognize and avoid hazardous conditions. The key issue with design safety is that many hazards are eliminated, so there is a reduced exposure to danger during construction, operation or maintenance

Design-Based Safety

As both business enterprise and governmental activities become automated, reliability will be the measure of performance. The term “reliability” establishes an actual value of absolute dependable failure-free performance from all hazardous conditions or circumstances during a specific time period or cycles of operation. Reliability ensures for the reliable and safe design of products, facilities and systems of operation, production, construction, resource extraction, transportation and storage. To achieve reliability, design becomes the “Holy Grail of Safety.” The primary hindrance to achieving reliable safe performance is the intervention of human input. A choice of developing a reliable machine or system depends on either eliminating hazards that are activated by people or eliminating people with a completely autonomous system.</jats:p

Design-Based Safety: The Evolution of Safety

The word “safety” has a variety of meanings. It is a condition of being free from “accidents,” or any device for preventing an accident. The word “accident” means “unintended event,” and does not reveal that there is a cause created by a “hazard.” In many people’s minds, an “accident” is the result of someone’s failure to avoid or prevent a dangerous condition or circumstance. It is often assumed that all one needs to do is just “be safe.” Overlooked is that “hazards” are not obvious to everyone all of the time. It is a fact that as machines and systems become increasingly complex, many hazards are hidden. The evolution of safety is the transition of “behavior-based safety” to “design-based safety.

Design-Based Safety

Every year since the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) was created, there have been hundreds of personal injury lawsuits that identify hazardous workplace machinery conditions or hazardous facility circumstances. These lawsuits are third-party personal litigations against the manufacturer or the premises owner whose product or property was inherently dangerous. These hazards were the cause of crippling injury or death of workers.</jats:p

Design-Based Safety

The amount of harm a hazard can cause is unknown, as many hazards remain dormant most of the time and become armed infrequently. Once armed, of course, they are able to cause harm or injury; however, in most circumstances, it is rare that the hazard actually causes injury or damage. But, because the natural seriousness of harm cannot be quantified, there is no such thing as an “acceptable” risk.</jats:p

Design-Based Safety: There Is No Such Thing as an “Acceptable” Risk

The amount of harm a hazard can cause is unknown, as many hazards remain dormant most of the time and become armed infrequently. Once armed, of course, they are able to cause harm or injury; however, in most circumstances, it is rare that the hazard actually causes injury or damage. But, because the natural seriousness of harm cannot be quantified, there is no such thing as an “acceptable” risk