Damage from an unsafe process or product

 A defective automobile brake system:

Collision: driver, passengers, other drivers, pedestrains,
vehicles, buildings, other facilities
Customer and employee lawsuits, criminal penalties
Unethical
• Life cycle of the products
– Manufacturing
– Use
– Retirement
• Hazard: sources of danger
– Fire and explosions
– Toxic release and dispersion models
– Entrapment
– Contact (hot surface)
– Impact (machine part collide with body part)
– Ejection (dangerous debris particles)
– Entanglement (hair or loose clothing)
– Noise and vibration
– Heat or cold
– Radiation, inhaled fibers
– Bacteria, fungi, molds, insects, bites etc
Product liability
 Civil action
 Criminal action
Occupational liability
 Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970
“Addressing occupational safety and health needs in
the design process to prevent or minimize the work-
related hazards and risks associated with the
construction, manufacture, use, maintenance, and
disposal of facilities, materials, and equipment.”
(NIOSH)
Reduced site hazards  fewer injuries and fatalities
Reduced workers compensation premiums
Increased productivity
Fewer delays due to accidents during construction allow
continued focus on quality
Encourages designer-constructor collaboration
Techniques to prevent fires and explosions
 Inerting
 Well ventilated
Relief devices
Material safety and data sheet (MSDS)
 http://hazard.com/msds
 http://www.ilpi.com/msds
Hazards identification and risk assessment
• Causal analysis
– involves identifying various cause-effect sequences of
hazardous events that may combine to cause the
identified hazards.
• Consequence analysis
– identifies the sequences of events that could lead from a
hazard to an accident or incident.
• A safety case
– relates to the assurance that the system is relatively safe.
 Inherently Safer Plants
 Plant Design
 Equipment Design
 Materials Selection
 Piping Systems
 Heat Transfer Fluid Systems
 Thermal Insulation
• Process Monitoring and Control
• Documentation
• Sources of Ignition
• Electrical System Hazards
• Deflagration and Detonation Flame Arresters
• Pressure Relief Systems
• Effluent Disposal Systems
• Fire Protection
• Explosion Protection
• Identifying the possible hazards in your process
• Check the safety lists provided at Page 44, Guidelines for Engineering
Design for Process Safety; and discuss the possibilities to make your
projected process inherent safe process
• Topic Discussion: It is a commonly acknowledged that safety should
be placed in the top priority in the engineering design; However,
many barriers are slowing this effort in the field, for example 1. Fear of
undeserved liability for worker safety; 2. Increase both direct and
overhead costs for designers industries; 3. Few design professionals
possess sufficient expertise in construction safety. Please play a role
and provide suggestions on how we as a society to address this
problem?
Eliminate the hazard
Protect against the hazard
Warn against the hazard
Provide training
Provide personal protection
Safe-life design principle
Fail-safe design principle
Redundant design principle
• Barrier: Fear of undeserved liability for worker safety.
• Criminal actions: Fail to
– Perform appropriate analysis
– Comply with published standards
– Make use of state-of-the-art technology, owing to ignorance
– Include reasonable safety features or devices
– Take into account how the user might misuses the product
– Consider hidden dangers that might surprise the user
– Consider variations in materials, manufacturing processes, or effects
of wear
– Carry out appropriate testing, or interpret results correctly
– Provide adequate warnings.
Barrier: Safety before design processes will increase
both direct and overhead costs for designers.
Barrier: Few design professionals possess sufficient
expertise in construction safety.