Safety Control Structures in Social Systems

Social system safety control structures often are not designed but evolve over time. They can, however, be analyzed for inherent risk and redesigned or reengineered to prevent accidents or to eliminate or control past causes of losses as determined in an accident analysis. 

The reengineering process starts with the definition of the hazards to be eliminated or mitigated, system requirements and constraints necessary to increase safety, and the design of the current safety-control structure. Analysis can then be used to drive the redesign of the safety controls. But once again, just like every system that has been described so far in this chapter, the process starts by identifying the hazards 

The control structure was later changed to have ITA under the control of the NASA center directors rather than the NASA chief engineer therefore, this control structure does not reflect the actual implementation of ITA at NASA, but it was the design at the time of the hazard analysis described in chapter 8. 

The NASA safety control structure under the original ITA design. 

Dozens of books have been written about the problems in the pharmaceutical industry. Everyone appears to have good intentions and are simply striving to optimize their performance within the existing incentive structure. The result is that the system has evolved to the point where each group s individual best interests do not necessarily add up to or are not aligned with the best interests of society as a whole. A safety control structure exists, but does not necessarily provide adequate satisfaction of the system-level goals, as opposed to the individual component goals. 

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