ENGINEER’S RESPONSIBILITY

FOR SAFETY

By
M.Dhilsath Fathima
 TOPICS TO COVER..
• Safety and Risk
• Assessment of Safety and Risk
• Risk-Benefit Analysis-Reducing Risk
• The Government Regulator’s Approach to Risk
 SAFETY AND RISK
• Imagine you are a fresh graduate.
– You get a job as an engineer in a large atomic power
plant.

• Would you take it or not?

• Under what conditions would you take it?
• Under what conditions would you not?
• Why?
 SAFETY AND RISK
• One of the main duties of an engineer is to ensure the
safety of the people who will be affected by the products
that he designs.
• The code of ethics of the professional engineering
societies make it clear that safety is of paramount
importance to the engineer.
• The engineering codes of ethics show that engineers
have a responsibility to society to produce products that
are safe.
• Nothing can be 100% safe, but engineers are required to
make products as safe as reasonably possible.
• Thus safety should be an integral part of any engineering
design.
 SAFETY AND RISK(Cont..)
• What may be safe for one person may not be safe for
another person.
– Ex 1: A Power Saw in the hands of a child is unsafe, but it is safe
in hand of adult.
– Ex 2:A sick adult is more prone to ill effects from air pollution
than a healthy adult.

• What is safe to Entrepreneurs, may not be so to Engineers.

e.g., Pilots: "Indian Airports are not safe; Low Vision in Fog“

• What is safe to Engineers, may not be so to Public.

• Typically several groups of people are involved in safety

matters but have their own interests at stake. Each group
may differ in what is safe and what is not.
 Concept of Safety
• “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built
for”
• ‘A thing is safe if its risks are judged to be acceptable’
• Definition for Safety
– “A thing is safe (to a certain degree) with respect to a given person or
group at a given time if, were they fully aware of its risks and
expressing their most settled values, they would judge those risks to
be acceptable (to that certain degree.
– Safety: Safe operation of system and the prevention of natural or
human caused disaster.
Ex 1 : We judge fluoride in water can kill lots of people ->
Overestimating risk.
Ex2: We hire a taxi, without thinking about its safety ->
Not estimating risk
• A thing is NOT SAFE if it exposes us to unacceptable danger
or hazard
 Concept of Risk
• Risk in technology could include dangers of
– bodily harm,
– economic loss, or
– environmental degradation.
– a situation involving exposure to danger
• Absolute safety is not possible .Any improvement in
making a product safe involves an increase in the cost
of production.
• It is very important for the manufacturer and the user to have
some understanding to know about the risk connected with any
product and know how much it will cost to reduce those risk.
• RISK is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may
occur.
– We take a risk when we undertake something or use a product that is not
safe.
 Types of Risk

• Acceptable Risk
• Voluntary risk and Control
• JOB RELATED RISKS
 Acceptable Risk
• Acceptable risk refers to the level of human and property injury or loss
from an industrial process that is considered to be tolerable by an
individual, household, group, organization, community, region, state, or
nation in view of the social, political, and economic cost-benefit analysis.

• Example: For instance, the risk of flooding can be accepted once every
500 years but it is not unacceptable in every ten years.

• it is management's responsibility to set their company's level of risk. As a

security professional, it is your responsibility to work with management
and help them understand what it means to define an acceptable level of
risk.
• Each company has its own acceptable risk level, which is derived from its
legal and regulatory compliance responsibilities.
Acceptable Risk vs Unacceptable Risk
 Voluntary risk
• A person is said to take ‘VOLUNTARY RISK’
• - when he is subjected to risk by either his own actions or action
taken by others
• -volunteers to take that risk without any apprehension.
• Ex: over rough ground for amusement
• Voluntary risks have to do with lifestyle choices. They are the risks
that people take knowing that they may have consequences. These
risks include smoking tobacco, driving a car, skydiving, and climbing a
ladder.
• Involuntary risks are risks that people take either not knowing that
they are at risk, or they are unable to control the fact that they are at
risk, such as secondhand smoke. These risks often include
environmental hazards such as lightning, tsunamis, and tornadoes.

•
Voluntary risk vs Involuntary risk
 JOB RELATED RISKS
• Many workers are taking risks in their jobs in their stride like
being exposed to asbestos.
• Exposure to risks on a job is in one sense of voluntary nature
since one can always refuse to submit to the work or may have
control over how the job is done.
• But generally workers have no choice other than what they are
told to do since they want to stick to the only job available to
them.
• But they are not generally informed about the exposure to toxic
substances and other dangers which are not readily seen, smelt,
heard or otherwise sensed.
• Occupational health and safety regulations and unions can have
a better say in correcting these situations but still things are far
below expected safety standards.
 ASSESSMENT OF SAFETY AND RISK
• Absolute safety is never possible to attain and safety can
be improved in an engineering product only with an
increase in cost.
• On the other hand, unsafe products increase secondary
costs to the producer beyond the primary (production)
costs, like warranty costs loss of goodwill, loss of
customers, legal action costs, downtime costs in
manufacturing, etc.
• Figure indicates that P- Primary costs are high for a highly
safe (low risk) product and S- Secondary costs are high
for a highly risky (low safe) product.
• It should now be clear that ‘safety comes with a price’
only.
ASSESSMENT OF SAFETY AND RISK
 What is the goal of risk assessment?

• The aim of the risk assessment process is to

remove a hazard or reduce the level of its risk
by adding precautions or control measures, as
necessary. By doing so, you have created a
safer and healthier workplace.
 Uncertainties encountered in design process

• Coordination problems.
• Contractor-caused delays.
• Uncertainties regarding materials and skills required in the
manufacturing
• Changing economic realities.
• Unfamiliar environmental conditions like very low temperature
• A decision on maximizing profit or maximizing the return on
investment.
• Uncertainties about applications like dynamic loading instead
of static loading, vibrations, wind speeds.
• The available standard data on items like steel, resistors,
insulators, optical glass, etc are based on statistical averages
only.
 Testing strategies for safety
Some commonly used testing methods:

• Using the past experience in checking the design and

performance.
• Prototype testing. Here the one product tested may not
be representative of the population of products.
• Tests simulated under approximately actual conditions to
know the performance flaws on safety.
• Routine quality assurance tests on production runs.
 Testing strategies for safety
• The above testing procedures are not always carried out
properly. Hence we cannot trust the testing procedures
uncritically. Some tests are also destructive and obviously it is
impossible to do destructive testing and improve safety.
• In such cases, a simulation that traces hypothetical risky
outcomes could be applied.
• Scenario Analysis (Event -> Consequences)
• Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (Failure modes of each
component)
• Fault Tree Analysis (System Failure -> Possible Causes at
component level)
 Example of Testing for safety
• Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) :
• This approach systematically examines the failure modes of each
component, without however, focusing on relationships among the
elements of a complex system.

• Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) :

• A system failure is proposed and then events are traced back to possible
causes at the component level. The reverse of the fault-tree analysis is
‘event – tree analysis’. This method most effectively illustrates the
disciplined approach required to capture as much as possible of
everything that affects proper functioning and safety of a complex
system.
 Risk Benefit Analysis
• Risk-benefit analysis involving studies, testing about the comparison of
the risk of a situation to its related benefits.
• Risk Benefit analysis (RBA) is an approach to risk assessment that focuses
not just on the risks of the activity, but on the benefits of the activity.
• Risk–benefit analysis is analysis that seeks to quantify the risk and
benefits and hence their ratio. Exposure to personal risk is recognized as a
normal aspect of everyday life. A certain level of risk in our lives is
accepted as necessary to achieve certain benefits.
• Risk is an essential element in the development of children’s physical,
emotional and intellectual development.
• Risk isn’t just about physical actions – for example climbing a tree or
skateboarding. It’s also about taking intellectual risks – trying anything for
the first time, testing new ideas, accepting other people’s opinions (even
if you don’t agree with them).
• Ex:For example, driving an automobile is a risk most people take daily.
 RISK BENEFIT ASSESSMENT-Example
ACTIVITY How will young Possible Who is PRECAUTIONS in place Overall risk
people BENEFIT hazards at risk? to reduce the risk of RATING:
from this injury L/M/H
activity?

• Banks shallow and planted

to prevent accidental
Slips, trips
entry.
and falls.
• No access to banks for
Cuts, grazes
The decking allows young people; use decking
POND and
close access to the or ‘beach’ area only.
DIPPING: abrasions. Young
contents of the pond • Deepest area is centre of
Slippery
and is an essential
Drowning people;
pond– keep to edges.
Low
pond (die through adults
component of • Dipping platform kept
decking submersion
exploring this habitat. clear of trip hazards (e.g.
in and
nets, trays)
inhalation of
• Pond use rules clearly
water).
displayed and reviewed at
the start of each session.
 Example-Pond dipping
• Pond dipping is a fun and
simple way for children
to explore an aquatic
habitat.
• Children will be able to
observe a diversity of
different creatures from
leeches to dragonfly
nymphs.
 Example-Nuclear Reactor Risk Assessment
ACTIVITY How Possible Who is at PRECAUTIONS in place Overall risk
will hazards risk? to reduce the risk of RATING:
people injury L/M/H
BENEFIT
from
this?

•Radioactive Waste
Disposal
Produce •Environmental •People
Nuclear Impact.
Power Plant
s electric •Environment • Use with proper training High
•Nuclear Accidents •Nature
ity. •High cost
•Can explode
anytime.
The Government Regulator
approach to risk
 Two approaches to acceptable risk

• Layperson: wants to protect himself or

herself from risk.
• The government regulator: wants as
much assurance as possible that the public
is not being exposed to unexpected harm.
Example(Fire accident)
Example(Flooding)-Before Flooding
Example(Flooding)-During Flooding