SE Validation Limited

Safety Cases and Safety Reports - Motivation and Management

Richard Maguire,
ISBN 0-7546-46491,
Price £55.00 (plus postage and packing).
published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

The core of safety engineering is a systematic approach to identifying the hazards and hazardous events that could happen, and then eliminating or controlling the risk. All this must be done until the risk is tolerable, and then it must be recorded, demonstrated and sustained over time. In step with this, there is a duty to assure yourself and demonstrate to others that your system, project, process or piece of equipment is tolerably safe, not only to the people who come into direct contact with it, but also members of the public and the environment at large. Corporate image and survivability is at stake, when considering what safety related actions to take. It really can be the difference between life and death, if it is applied correctly, the benefits to the organisation are truly amazing lower lost time, fewer workplace incidents, improved staff loyalty and a better bottom line.

The major tools for accomplishing all of this is the concept of a safety case and safety report. The parallels with a legal case are useful they equally scare corporate managers. The main difference with the safety case is that you have the opportunity to construct the case in your own time and whilst you are developing the system. You do not have to be called to court to have to start to prepare your case, you can do it now while you have all the information around you and full control over it.

The key elements of this text are based around identifying the meaning and measurement of safety and risk; the motivation behind the need to construct a safety case; the management of the task of generating and presenting one; and how to maintain it once it has been produced. Explicit guidance is given on developing risk matrices, safety targets, demonstrating ALARP, the value of preventing a fatality and tools and techniques for safety assessments. Coupled with these, are specific chapters on human factors, software factors and management factors and how they influence safety performance and safety cultures. All these areas need to be considered in a robust, consistent and complete safety case.

The text takes a world view of safety engineering across all the hazardous industries nuclear, rail, chemical, defence and construction, citing historical and not-so-historical incidents to provide real examples of the textural points being made. Some you will probably be familiar with, others show classic traits of poor safety practice and worse safety management.

The importance of the safety case cannot be understated, it has become integral to UK industry, with statutes mandating its use in certain high risk industry. Knowledge of it is required to operate at any level in any of the industries noted above. Additionally, risk and safety have become political issues, the UK Government has expressly said that safety management getting the right balance between innovation and change on one hand, and avoidance of shocks and crisis on the other is now central to the business of good government.

Introduction to Safety

Published by SE Validation Limited
ISBN 0-9550107-0-5
Price £5.00 (plus postage and packing).

Introduction to Safety aims to breakdown system safety for the first time into easily digested pieces, enabling engineering newcomers and those returning to this niche sector to get up to date with the latest procedures. The booklet is designed to provide easy-to-use guidance on new standards describing hazard analysis, risk analysis, risk assessment, risk reduction and risk acceptance. In addition human factors, software factors and safety compliance are included in the booklet.

Introduction to Simulation Validation

Published by SE Validation Limited
ISBN 0-9550107-1-3
Price £5.00 (plus postage and packing).

Introduction to Simulation Validation is designed as an essential guide to the basics of validating simulations; the booklet covers the key areas of the simulation process such as applications, conceptual models, verification and validation.

If you are interested in ordering either or both of these booklets, please contact Sue

Further Titles due for Publication

• Introduction to Social Engineering (in the context of complex capabilities)
• Introduction to Synthetic Environment-Based Testing
• Introduction to Graphical Argumentation
• Introduction to Systems Engineering