System Safety for the 21st Century, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 4Problem Areas

Even though the system safety effort is alive and well in the aerospace and nuclear worlds and expanding into other areas, several significant problem areas may be restraining the expansion of new system safety programs and limiting the effectiveness of existing programs.

Eight general problem areas need to be addressed before the system safety effort can provide the safety services that will be needed in this century. Many of these problems are interrelated.

• Standardization
• Risk assessment codes
• Data
• Communications
• Life cycle
• Education and training
• Human factors
• Software

First, standardization is almost wholly lacking. Each agency, contractor, and analyst has a separate set of definitions, techniques, approaches, and worksheets.

Second, not only is there no standard risk assessment code (RAC) but also some people in this field maintain that there is no adequate risk assessment code. They are all so subjective as to be almost meaningless.

Third, in some areas, reliable, quantitative data are lacking. Meaningful risk assessment must have valid data available.

Fourth, at times some elements of the system safety community have tended to operate out of ivory towers, with narrow concepts and inadequate attention to two of the most valuable sources of information available: end users and the rest of the safety community.

Fifth, even though all system safety programs embrace the life cycle concept, few actually provide meaningful efforts throughout the operations ...