Saturday, July 21, 2012

Safety Cases

There's a case to be made for the 'safety case', so says Matthew Squair.

“A safety case is a documented demonstration
by an organisation of the way in which hazards at
a facility (read: weapon system) are managed”
IEAUST, 2002


“A documented body of evidence that provides a
convincing and valid argument that a system is
adequately safe for a given application in a given
environment”
Adelard

Ok, that's what it is, but why do we need it?

– You may need a tool for managing the safety of a plant or system
• Identifying and managing the safety impacts of change
• Setting safety targets
• Confidence in meeting safety targets

– To address and reduce legal liability:
• Statute (COMCARE)
• Common law (Negligence)

– To make a reasoned argument that a system is (or will be) safe

– It may be a direct or implied regulatory requirement

– To organise and structure a project or plants safety data,
information and logical argument

– To identify constraints and where tradeoffs of safety against
mission effectiveness have been made

– To identify aspects of operational risk management

Good grief! I didn't know I needed it, but now I do...