Safety in Engineering and introduction to Risk analysis

Engr TE Agov

Responsibility for Safety

We had earlier explained why the Engineer needs to be responsible and also stated that
responsible Engineers follow the code of ethics to avoid unnecessary problems. These
unnecessary problems majorly occur in two different ways - assessible and nonassessible. A
simple mistake made by an Engineer in the course of his duties may result in huge losses to the
organization, environment, humans, etc.
An Engineer is supposed to carry out risk assessment before engaging in any project or experiment.
Disasters may occur at times, even if enough care is taken, however, being aware of all the
possibilities help the Engineer to take adequate precautions. Therefore, the importance of safety in
engineering cannot be overemphasized.
Safety and Risk
In engineering practice, the terms ‘accident’, ‘Risk’ and ‘safety’ are inter-related. Let us try to
explain the terms in more detail.
Accident, Risk and Safety
Accident:
1. An unfortunate incident or happenstance which occurs unintentionally and
unexpectedly resulting to injury, damage and/or loss.
2. A chance event which is not apparent or deliberate.
3. A potentially disastrous incident or situation caused typically by negligence.
Risk:
1. A phenomenon or situation which exposes someone to danger.
2. To do something which may result to harm or any unpleasant consequences.
3. A measure of the uncertainty someone is willing to sacrifice or undertake to realize a
gain from the investment of his/her resources.
4. The chance or probability of a person/property/equipment/machinery being harmed
or experiencing adverse health condition(s) if exposed to hazard(s).
Safety:
1. A condition or state of being free from the risk or occurrence of danger, injury or loss.
2. A state of being free from hazards, risks or accidents that may cause damage, loss of
property, injury or fatality(ultimate loss of life/lives)
3. A condition of being free from unacceptable risks directly caused by physical hazards
when machinery/equipment are used under normal conditions.

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William W Lowrance, a famous safety consultant of old, defined Safety as “A thing is safe if its
risks are judged to be acceptable.”
Three hypothetical scenarios below will make the above assertion clearer.
1st SCENARIO:
*Assuming we seriously underestimate the risks of an occurrence.*
For instance, buying a non-branded electric pressing iron from a local market without any
guarantee may eventually send us to a hospital with severe electric shock or burns, however,
buying this electric pressing iron, according to Lowrance’s definition is quite safe since the risks
are judged to be acceptable.
2nd SCENARIO:
*Let the 2nd scenario be where we grossly overestimate the risks of occurrence.*
If we suddenly realize that the consumption of carbonated beverages (Coca-Cola, Pepsi cola, Pop
Cola, etc accounts for 5% of the world’s cancer patients and then we classify these drinks as
poisonous. According to Lowrance’s definition, these drinks become unsafe the moment we judged
the risks of using them to be unacceptable to us.
3rd SCENARIO:
Let the 3rd scenario be a situation where a group of people refrain from making any judgment at
all about whether the risks of an occurrence are acceptable or not. According to Lowrance, this is
the position where the thing is neither safe nor unsafe with respect to that group. An example is
where using the products of certain brands are considered safe, while others are not where nothing
seems to differ.
SAFETY FIRST PRINCIPLE
The safety first principle means ‘it is best to avoid any unnecessary risks, and to act so that you
stay safe’. This involves paying attention and being careful.
*Note that in Engineering and the manufacturing industry as well as Engineering research
organizations, safety comes first, followed by quality then lastly, production volume*.

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Fig 1: Safety education reminding that in everything you do safety should come first.
Safety in the work place:
This refers to the process of protecting employees from work-related injuries and illnesses.
The starting point for safety in the workplace is to develop an organization’s Safety, Health and
Environmental policy statement and the implementation of a workplace safety plan and program.
Safety is very often expressed in terms of degree and comparisons. The words like fairly-
safe and relatively-safe are used where an individual is judged on the basis of settled values and
it is further decided that the risks of anything are more or less acceptable in comparison with the
risks of the other thing. For example, the consideration that traveling by train to Abuja was safer
than by road.
Risk
Any activity which might cause harm to us is considered unsafe and can be considered as a ‘risk’.
Therefore, “A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.” William
D Rowe defines risk as ‘potential for the realization of unwanted consequences from
impending events.
Risk is a broad concept covering many different types of unwanted occurrences. In engineering
and technology, risk can include dangers of bodily harm, of economic loss or of environmental
degradation. The causes of the above are delayed job completion, defective products or systems or
economically or environmentally injurious solutions to technological problems.

Fig 2: Safety sign indicating the risk of death.

Due to advancement in technology, people are now aware of all the inputs of any process. Risks
are also understood and more easily identified.
Lowrance’s Definition and the concept of Acceptability of Risk

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Lowrance’s definition defines safety as acceptable risk.
I’d like us to relate to this and also further examine the definition of ‘safety’ by William D. Rowe,
Generally “a risk is acceptable when those affected are generally no longer apprehensive
about it”.
The influential factors which lead to such apprehension are:
1. Whether the risk is accepted voluntarily.
2. The effects of knowledge on how the probabilities of harm (or benefit) are known or
perceived.
3. If the risks are job-related or other pressures exist that cause people to be aware of or to
overlook such risks.
4. Whether the effects of a risky activity or situation are immediately noticeable or are close
at hand.
5. Whether the potential victims are identifiable beforehand.
Note that the acceptability of risk depends upon the types of risks such as voluntary and involuntary
risks, short term and long-term consequences, expected probability, reversible effects, threshold
levels for risk, delayed and immediate risk, etc.
Voluntarism and Control
In the course of our daily living, we come across several activities where the scopes of risk are
low, medium or high. Examples are sited below.
1. The vehicle driver who breaks a traffic red light signal is prone to be a victim of an accident.
2. A person who lives near a refuse dumping yard is prone to ill-health but neglects.
3. A boy who rides a vehicle at a high speed cannot rely on the perfect functioning of the
brakes.
All the above people take voluntary risks thinking they have control over the said
adverse events/outcomes that might occur.
These people are well displaying the characteristically unrealistic confidence of most
people who believe hazards to be under their control.
Note that generally rnthusiasts worry less about the risks they might face and hence neglect
the dangers associated with the risks and the chance of getting affected is unpredictable in
such cases.
Effective information on Risk assessment
The acceptability of risks also depends on the manner in which information necessary for decision
making is presented.
A person can be motivated to violate the safety rules by explaining the higher probability of success
whereas the same person can be demotivated from such task by explaining to him/her the
probability of failure and the fatal effects that will occur.

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Therefore, options perceived as yielding firm gains will tend to be preferred over those from which
gains are perceived as risky or only probable. Emphasizing major/firm losses will tend to be
avoided in favor of those whose chances of success are perceived as probable.
In short, people tend to be more willing to take risks in order to avoid perceived major/firm losses
than they are to win only possible gains.
Job-related Risks
In some jobs where the workers are exposed to chemicals, radiations and poisonous gases etc.,
they are not informed about the probable risks they would be facing, in doing their jobs. These are
such dangers where the toxic environments cannot readily be seen, smelled, heard or sensed
otherwise.
The workers at such places are simply bound to their work and what they are told to do. The health
condition of a person who gets affected under such environments cannot be neglected because that
will be the future condition of co-workers.
Magnitude and Proximity
It is unfortunate that most of us, realize the magnitude of risk only when we ourselves or persons
who are in our close proximity or a relative gets affected.
A group of 20 friends including us, if gets affected or if had a narrow escape from death affects us
more than if the incident occurred to a group of 50 strangers, in a group of 1000. This proximity
effect arises in perceptions of risk over time as well.
A future risk is easily dismissed by various rationalizations including:
1. The attitude of “out of sight, out of mind”.
2. The assumption that predictions for the future must be discounted by using lower
probabilities.
3. The belief that a counter-measure will be found in time.
Note:
Design and Risk
A continuous enthusiasm that fosters us to do such task without thinking is really dangerous. Either
the attitude that everything is under control and nothing is going to happen or the negligence upon
the number of accidents which occurred is equally risky. It is important that engineers recognize
as part of their work such widely held perceptions of risk and take them into account in their
designs.
Risk Analysis
The study of risk analysis covers other areas such as risk identification, risk analysis, risk
assessment, risk rating, suggestions on risk control and risk mitigation. In fact, risk analysis can
be deeply discussed with a view on risk management study. The risk management study also
includes residual risk transfer, risk financing, etc.
A step-wise risk analysis includes −
1. Hazards identification

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 2. Failure modes and frequencies evaluation from established sources and best practices.
3. Selection of credible scenarios and risks.
4. Fault and event trees for various scenarios.
5. Consequences-effect calculations with work out from models.
6. Individual and societal risks.
7. ISO risk contours superimposed on layouts for various scenarios.
8. Probability and frequency analysis.
9. Established risk criteria of countries, bodies, standards.
10. Comparison of risk against defined risk criteria.
11. Identification of risk beyond the location boundary, if any.
12. Risk mitigation measures.
All of these again depend on how the risk is compared with the benefit in doing the work with
some risk. How far it is beneficial to take risks also affects the actions of a person while coming
out of the safety bounds.
Risk Benefit Analysis
There are these two famous sayings that:
“A Ship in harbor is safe” and “an aeroplane in the tarmac is safe”. However, we all know quite
well that ships and aeroplanes are not built to be kept in harbor or tarmac.”.
Risk is somewhat common to both when performing their designed functions and must be
accepted. The most common risk we all take is driving an automobile in a traffic. Though we are
not sure about the perfect functionality of the brake system and the timings of other drivers’
responses, we take the risk. The controlling factor for every driver appears to be their perception
of their individual ability to manage the risk-creating situations.
Just like the instances above, people mostly calculate the ratios of risk-to-benefit while accepting
the risks. The risk-to-benefit analysis is made depending on the types of risks stated below:
1. The risk to be occurred in future is completely known after it gets fully developed. It is
called as Real future risk.
2. If the idea of risk is developed using current data, such one is called as Statistical risk.
3. The risk which is analytically based on system models structured from historical studies is
called as Projected risk.
4. The risk which is intuitively seen by individuals is called as Perceived risk

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Fig 3: Motorists driving in traffic
If the risks of traveling on an air-plane is considered for observation, then the flight insurance
company can observe it as a statistical risk, while the risk the passenger faces is Perceived Risk
and that which the Nigerian Civil Aviation a Authority faces a Projected risk. Therefore, the view
of accepting the risk and the idea of risk to benefit ratio motivates the individual.
Risk Reduction
The risks we generally face in our lives can be reduced to a great extent by proper analysis with
steps as stated below:
1. Define the Problem
2. Generate Several Solutions.
3. Analyze each solution to determine the pros and cons of each.
4. Test the solutions.
5. Select the best solution.
6. Implement the chosen solution.
7. Analyze the risk in the chosen solution.
8. Try to solve or move to next solution.

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The Government Approach to Risk Mabagement
Risk management has to be viewed in a wider perspective at times when sudden disasters occur
due to lack of proper care and assessment. The government has the responsibility of taking care of
all the public needs including mitigating the risk. The government’s approach towards public risk-
mitigation lies in saving as many lives as possible.
The two major approaches of the government are:
1. Lay person − Wants to protect himself or herself from risk.
2. The government regulator − Wants as much assurance as possible that the public is not
being exposed to unexpected harm.
For example, at the times of flood or fire accident, the government and its agencies responsible for
disaster protection and control should aim at protecting as many lives as possible rather than
looking for a benefit or protecting some property. It will count as a successful attempt towards
facing risk if the authority is able to protect its people even after the destruction of properties.
THANKYOU!!!