Supportive Resources: Mastering the Art of Making Sense

This paper questions the nature of qualitative user studies as currently applied in the context of experience-centered design. We suggest that conceiving knowledge as if it were an entity that can be captured in some form and transferred unchanged oversimplifies the situation in the case of design, and, for the purpose of opening a dialogue on the topic is problematic. We put forward an alternative perspective, that of supportive resources, which go beyond social science-based approaches, such as user studies, to focus on the forming of knowledge by designers. Supportive resources are intended to inspire, but equally they are intended to help frame, guide and support the design process in a non-prescriptive way. Designers can apply them as needed to support existing approaches. In order to better describe supportive resources and their role in design, the authors present four examples from projects currently being undertaken by the authors; storytelling, language and touch, material knowledge, and video

Chasing the Black Swan

The term “Black Swan” is a familiar concept in the context of high-consequence operations. There is the continual concern that there may be an “as yet” undiscovered flaw or lack of understanding in the design of a product, process or facility that could lead to a catastrophic event. The potential incompleteness in understanding any design concept, implementation and associated assessment is of concern. Given that “absolute confidence” may never be possible, the question becomes how best to continue to search for such possible flaws with a view to subsequent removal or mitigation. At first sight, this appears to be a process without end, but the level of commitment must be balanced against any detrimental consequence that could ensue should a Black Swan exist. But when is “enough is enough?” In this paper, this subject is covered in the context of nuclear warheads, where the Black Swan could indeed be catastrophic should it exist. The paper is framed around what can be learned from the general literature associated with “Black Swan” thinking

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - The Need for New Safety Standards and Methodologies

There have been a series of challenges in developing appropriate safety standards and methodologies as technology evolves to ensure their safe implementation. These challenges, which fi rst arose at the dawn of the industrial revolution, will inevitably continue. New technologies will always forge ahead in a competitive marketplace; failure to do so will inevitably lead to organizational demise. However, these developments must be matched by a complement of research activity seeking to ensure that appropriate new safety standards and methodologies are put in place to maintain acceptable levels of risk. A new challenge now confronts us in the form of artifi cial intelligence (AI), where we stand at the frontiers of decision making in relation to what roles machines and humans should play in optimal decision making and how this will impact safety

The International System Safety Society and the International System Safety Conference — Its Future

In recent years, there has been a falling off of membership in the International System Safety Society and attendance at its annual International System Safety Conference (ISSC). There are a number of reasons for this, including: The recent tight budget constraints on government and independent organizations A growing loss of younger Society membership The impression that the Society no longer serves a unique niche in the world of system safety The first aspect needs no further consideration, apart from how one continues to make the case to organizations about the benefits of active membership in the Society and attendance at its meetings. Typically, one might note the value of networking with peers, learning what’s new and topical in system safety. I suppose one must also ask how organizations typically view graded membership in the Society as compared to equivalent membership in more formal institutions. More specifically, what does the Society’s membership and level mean to the individual and the organization in terms of achieving improved performance? What benefits do organizations gain from Society membership of advertising the pedigree of its workforce? Has there been an organizational review of this nature

Organizational Problems: Potential Causes and Unintentional Consequences — Some Personal Views

It is not uncommon today for companies to suffer a range of program difficulties, which broadly lie under the headings of “lack of efficiency,” “schedules moving to the right,” “cost overruns” and “having to repair past poor decisions.” Although senior management may appear to be well aware of these problems and their consequences, inherent difficulties in rectifying these problems exist. Often, responses are more directed to corrective action and damage limitations rather than assessing what is wrong at a fundamental level. Of course, most — if not all — safety mishaps can be associated with technical or human faults. However, it is also generally accepted that these are not the root-cause reasons for mishaps but rather, a result of faults higher up in the organization’s structure

Global Warming and System Safety

We are currently confronted with the existential challenge of global warning. Because of its nature it is a challenge that confronts the entire globe both in terms of contributing factors and bearing the consequences. In both aspects there is an inevitable balance of responsibilities and consequences. In the former, some national entities are bigger contributors to the problem than others and in a similar manner some global areas suffer relatively more significant negative consequences. Another major challenge has been that of generating a better scientific understanding of the relationships between greenhouse gas emission, global warming, and the resulting environmental consequences. The remaining challenges that follow are how best to prevent or minimise greenhouse gas emissions, how to store them safety and how to mitigate the potential negative consequences. These are now global level responsibilities. At first sight this appears to be a problem restricted to big science, technology, and engineering alone in terms of finding more acceptable forms of energy production, as a counter to our current dependence on fossil fuels and that it might not be an area where system safety can play a prominent part. However, this is not the case, and this paper explores the system safety application possibilities, because all new developments require to be implemented in a safe manner

System Safety in Organizational Safety Decision Making

The two cardinal aspects of safety are intrinsic safety and its demonstration. A key element of demonstrating system safety is the organizational structure that is best placed to ensure and demonstrate that high standards of safety are clearly in place for its products, processes and facilities. This is particularly important for high-consequence industries. Accomplishing this depends on a number of organizational integrated layers of scrutiny, ranging from the accumulation of arguments and evidence at the lower levels to final executive decision making. The latter holds final responsibility and accountability. Potential problems arise because products, processes and facilities are becoming more and more complex and the associated supporting data inordinately large. In turn, the organizational processes that enable top-level decision makers to make wise and informed decisions are themselves becoming more complex and difficult. This final stage requires clear and transparent communication. Organizations have moved more towards the application of peer review to support final decision making but, nevertheless, one still expects the final decision-making layer to provide further independent scrutiny to enhance overall confidence in the process. This would represent a three-tier independent process — strength in depth. This is the subject of the paper

Implications of STAMP for Warhead Safety at AWE

STAMP (System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes) is a relatively new approach to safety assessment methodology and post-accident cause analysis; its prime developer is Nancy Leveson of MIT. STAMP is a holistic system-level approach to overall organizational structure and to technical operations and design. It takes a comprehensive look at all possible organizational and technical system influences that can ultimately affect the safety of technical processes and product designs in whatever scenarios or environments in which they operate or to which they are subjected. Of course, the process can be applied equally to both reliability of performance and security, in addition to safety

Confirming the position of a nasogastric tube what does the literature say?

Nasogastric tubes are a medical device that can be used for a number of purposes. The process of inserting them however can be complicated. Nurses must therefore use an evidence based approach to confirm the correct position of nasogastric tubes and there are three main techniques described in the literature to do so. To date, one group of authors has published the majority of the studies on these techniques. This paper reviews their work. <br /