Formal Safety Assessments defined

All three elements must be linked to one another. For example, the facility description will provide technical information that provides the basis of the formal safety assessment and the safety management system. Similarly, the safety management system will define what information should be included in the facility description. 

A more policy-oriented issue is that many applications do not follow the suggested definitions by relevant authorities. In the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), which is commonly seen as the official guide for risk assessment in the maritime field, risk is defined as the combination of the frequency and the severity of the consequence (IMO 2007), i.e. a categorization in line with class C6. While the definitions based on expected values (Cl) are close to this view as it consists of the same elements, the definitions in line with C2 and especially C5 represent significantly different risk classes. The ISO-def-inition, seeing risk as the effect of uncertainty on objectives , is not applied in the application area. 

In the past decade an approach has been defined to help assess efficiently the safety of systems. This approach, called Model Based Safety Assessment [4], is based on the use of formal models of aircraft systems and of associated tools to automatically perform parts of the safety assessment required in the airworthiness certification process. 

The project engineering activities have to be formally defined and managed as part of the drive to achieve conformance with functional safety standards. Clause 8 of the lEC standard spells out the requirements for functional safety assessment by independent auditors as was outlined in Chapter 1. 

It is particularly important to define responsibilities in safety system project. The formal procedures of functional safety assessment require that each party in safety project has... 

Incorporating human error in case for safety risk assessment For many years there has been a requirement in the nuclear industry for plants to develop a Safety Case and have it approved by regulators in order to obtain a licence to operate. The Safety Case is, essentially, a very comprehensive quantified risk assessment based on the aggregated probability of an event (for example, the escape of radiation) against a defined benchmark probability. Once the licence has been granted, the Safety Case has to be formally reviewed at defined intervals. 

In 1996 the NR A (now part of the Environment Agency) undertook a review on public safely access to the coastal environment. The overall purpose of that research (Environment Agency, 1996 and 1997) was to assist the authority to define a consistent policy for responding to public safety issues and to provide a system for determining appropriate responses. While this research has not resulted in any formal policy, it is worth noting that as a result of this work the Agency now has a process of Public Safety Risk Assessment which is mandatory for all new EA projects. 

The technique is defined as the application of a formal critical examination to the process and engineering intentions of new facilities to assess the hazard potential from incorrect operation or malfunction of individual items of equipment, and the consequential effects on the facility as a whole. It ensures that health and safety requirements are considered at the design... 

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