This discussion might be a bit on the “geek” side of things for some of you. Sorry about that, now and then I run into things in my profession as a System Safety Engineer that get me fired up enough to write about. Perhaps you will find it interesting, even though a bit geeky.

For a little background, for the past few years I have been working with Arizona State University (ASU), the System Safety Society (SSS), NIOSH and a group of very large construction/engineering contractors to try to find ways to implement System Safety (SS) practices into general engineering practices. System safety is a process of identifying potential hazards (and their risks) associated with proposed new systems (cars, buildings, rockets, table saws – whatever) so that measures can be taken to eliminate them (or at least reduce the risks to acceptable levels). It is based upon engineering expertise with the intention of makings inherently safe as an integral aspect of the design.

OSHA has leveraged this concept by proposing a process called “Prevention Through Design (PtD)” (which sounds a lot like System Safety). Because it is being promoted by the construction division of OSHA, the scope of the activity tends to be limited to worker safety during construction – rather than user safety which is a big part of the scope of SS. They propose using a similar process as SS uses for doing the evaluations, just with a much reduced scope.

There are quit a few people around the world trying to figure out how to actually do PtD. I have joined a small group of interested organizations in the hope of showing them that they don’t have to make up new processes. The SS profession has been doing this work for decades, has tons of materials (books, standards, courses, etc) to help learn the process, and is willing and able to assist. So far there is a strong sense of “not invented here” bias preventing the “worker safety” profession from accepting what we have learned over the years. It is a shame that they feel the need to redesign the process because it will inevitably follow a similar path as the SS profession has with successes, failures, and expensive trials after millions of hours of effort, and trillions of dollars of development projects. We could help, but so far they continue to believe they are developing something brand new. I guess that feeling of “ownership” lends “energy” to the process, but it certainly frustrates me. I would rather that they work with us to figure out how to implement our known processes into their specific needs instead of watch them as they start from scratch yet again.

Yesterday I attended a meeting with the group as they planned out a workshop to be presented on-line in May. Several of the papers that they selected for the workshop focus on new protective equipment such as active body armor and exoskeleton force multiplier devices (wearable powered frames that do they work instead of the person’s muscles doing the work – another one of those sci-fi fantasies that have come true). The group was very excited by these opportunities to limit injuries to workers. Luckily one of the members voiced a concern that I was worrying about – “Is this new equipment really PtD, or is it just fancy PPE”. (PPE means Personal Protective Equipment such as hearing protection, eye protection, respirators, etc). (I didn’t bring up the question because I have been attempting to avoid pushing my point of view too hard, hoping to gently guiding their discussions rather than being too pushy.)

That opened a conversation whereby I pointed out that the idea of PtD (and SS) is to design the system to be safe, not to just add things to protect people from the dangers of the system. I told them that from my point of view the goal is to reduce the need for people to do the right thing to stay safe. Requiring the use of PPE is certainly a long way from that goal – and is only needed when the SS effort has failed.

I was heartened to notice that a couple of attendees seemed to get something of an “ah ha” moment, that the point isn’t just to protect the workers, but it is to make the system safe for workers, users, the environment – for everyone. I was surprised to see the changes in their expressions – somehow I assumed that when they were talking about PtD and SS they actually understood what they were talking about. Apparently not. The problem is a long standing one in the safety profession having to do with our respective paradigms concerning the nature of the business. We (SS folks) think in terms of minimizing all risks throughout the system lifecycle by designing out hazards. They (worker safety folks) think in terms of reducing lost time accidents on the job site (OSHA – Occupational Safety and Health Administration). An example of how this results in different answers is working at height. SS tries to design so that there is no need to work at height. OSHA focuses on providing fall protection devices when working at height.

The really interesting part of the “ah ha” moment that I noticed is that there appeared to be a shift from thinking that the design of PPE is and example of Prevention through the design of the PPE, versus the idea of enhancing safety by changing the design of the project. They were convinced that the design that they were focusing on was the design of the protective devices and procedures, rather than the design of the system under consideration. This is a HUGE difference of point of view, one that I have been trying to point out to my Worker Safety colleagues for the past forty or so years – usually with little or no success. The trouble with these kinds of paradigm mismatches such as this is that we both use the same words, use the same descriptions, have similar ultimate concerns – but don’t actually communicate when we speak.

I have read that when someone shifts their paradigm they can understand the differences – but those using the original paradigm can’t. This results in a situation where I can understand their point of view because that it how I thought about safety when I was a general building contractor. However, when I shifted to viewing the problems from the SS perspective I entered into a paradigm that I understand, but they don’t. I can see both my point of view and theirs (because I have experienced theirs), but they can’t so easily see mine until (or unless) they experience the kind of “ah ha” that I hope I saw at the meeting. It will be interesting to see if I am correct, or if they really just saw a slightly different approach within their paradigm.