Creating Your Own Safety Knowledge Management System Some Suggestions

3 CREATING YOUR OWN SAFETY KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SOME SUGGESTIONS 

One of the problems with data banks is that they primarily hold failure data. Failure data are very important to understand how and when a piece of equipment can fail, but they do not necessarily teU us whether the equipment is safe or not. System safety analysis cannot be totally computerized anymore than designing a bridge can. We can put a lot of structural analysis tools (e.g., finite-element analysis) online, but the pure creativity of designing a bridge still has not been fully automated. 

What we reaUy need is information that indicates safe or unsafe scenarios. A scenario is an event that is composed of all the equipment, people, environment, and operations of a system. By being able to gather, store, and disseminate safety scenario information, we can refer to it to help us solve new safety problems. 

Do not forget the Internet. Use it. This is probably one of the easiest, and certainly the lastest, way to find organizations that have useful data. It scans like an obvious suggestion, but many have not really used it well. 

But on the other side, be very careful of the Internet too. Just because it is on the Internet does not mean that it is correct or true. Double check sources and use only reliable and reputable sources. 

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