User-Friendly Designs

Inherently Safer Design Rather than add on equipment to control hazards or to protect people from their consequences, it is better to design user-friendly plants which can withstand human error and equipment failure without serious effects on safety, the environment, output, and efficiency. This part is concerned with this matter. 

For many years the usual procedure in plant design was to identify the hazards, by one of the systematic techniques described later or by waiting until an accident occurred, and then add on protec tive equipment to control future accidents or protect people from their consequences. This protective equipment is often complex and expensive and requires regular testing and maintenance. It often interferes with the smooth operation of the plant and is sometimes bypassed. Gradually the industry came to resize that, whenever possible, one should design user-friendly plants which can withstand human error and equipment failure without serious effects on safety (and output and emciency). When we handle flammable, explosive, toxic, or corrosive materials we can tolerate only very low failure rates, of people and equipment—rates which it may be impossible or impracticable to achieve consistently for long periods of time. 

Concepts such as user-centered design, user-friendly systems, and ergonomically designed systems have been around for quite some time. Virtually everybody endorses these ideas, but very few people know what to do in order to realize the potential of these concepts. What is needed, and what this chapter presents, is a methodological framework within which human-centered design objectives can be systematically and naturally pursued. 

Since brewery wastewater contains high levels of organic impurities, the results discussed in this section show that membrane technologies may be considered as preferred treatment methods for the brewing industry because of their environmentally friendly results, simplicity regarding design, user-friendly aspects in terms of operations and the small amount of space they require. Furthermore, no regenerating chemicals are required, which means no additional salts have to be added for wastewater neutralisation. 

Lavonen, J., Aksela, M., Juuti, K., Meisalo, V. (2003). Designing user-friendly datalogging for chemical education through factor analysis of teacher evaluations. International Journal of Science Education, 25,1471-1487. 

Inherently Safer and More User-Friendly Design. 26-5... 

INHERENTLY SAFER AND MORE USER-FRIENDLY DESIGN... 

The principle ways of designing inherently safer plants and other ways or makiug plants user-friendly are summarized as follows, with examples (Kletz, Plant De.sign for Safety—A U.ser-Friendly Approach, Hemisphere, 1991). 

The following actions are needed for the design of inherently safer and more user-friendly plants-. 

This is essential to improve the product by upgrading the quality or modifying its design or other parameters that may make it more acceptable and competitive in the market. This is possible by creating a user-friendly approach to obtain reactions to the product s performance. 

The document should be designed to be concise, user friendly, and usable as a reference for both supervisors and workers. It should help identify hazards and implement hazard control requirements for the... 

The confluence of sharply rising Operations and Maintenance (O M) costs. NRC requested Individual Plant Examinations (IPEs) and increased personal computer capabilities gave rise to the R R Workstation. Its uses and maintains-current PSA models and databases for individual plants to perform O M planning and scheduling, and uses the PSA in IPE models to identify plant design, procedure and operational vulnerabilities. The Risk and Reliability Workstation Alliance was organized by EPRI to support the R R Workshop in order to achieve O M cost reduction, plant productivity and safety enhancement through risk-based, user-friendly, windowed software louls (Table 3.6 8). The Alliance, initiated in 1992, includes 25 U.S. utilities and four international partners from Spain, France, Korea, and Mexico. SAIC is the prime contractor for the R R Workstation, with participation of five other PSA vendors. 

My book Plant Design for Safety—A User-Friendly Approach [1] and References 12-15 describe many examples of ways in which plants can be made inherently safer. Note that we use the term inherently safer, not inherently safe, as we cannot avoid every hazard. 

A related concept to inherently safer design is user-friendly design designing equipment so that human error or equipment failure does not have serious effects on safety (and also on output or efficiency). While we try to prevent human errors and equipment failures, only very low failure rates are acceptable when we are handling hazardous materials, and, as this book has shown, it is hard to achieve them. We should, therefore, try to design so that the effects of errors are not serious. The follov,/-ing are some of the ways in which we can accomplish this ... 

With new plastics and processing techniques always becoming available, the design challenge becomes easier, even when taking today s solid-waste problem into account. Today s plastics and processes allow designers to incorporate and interrelate all the aspects of success. In products such as electronics, medical devices, transportation controls, and many others where user-friendly design is required, it has to be obvious to all that plastics play an important role. 

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