System Safety Development Center

US Department of Energy, Accident/Incident Investigation Manual, Second Edition. Idaho Falls, ID System Safety Development Center, Idaho National Engineering Lahoratoiy 1985. (DOE/SSDC 76-45/27)... 

The work by Bill Johnson was expanded and supplemented throughout the 1970s by the System Safety Development Center (SSDC) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The MORT program provides the direction for this second major branch of the system safety effort. 

The MORT tools and techniques can be helpful in preparing a safety analysis report (SAR), the upstream safety product most frequently required for new DOE programs, but the more common system safety products (system safety program plan, preliminary hazard analysis, system/subsystem hazard analysis, operating hazard analysis) are not a dominant part of the MORT program and are seldom even referenced in System Safety Development Center (SSDC) documents. 

Figure 10-2 Analytical trees. (Derived from the student workbook from the Management Oversight and Risk Tree Workshop presented for the Department of Energy by the System Safety Development Center.)...

Figure 12-1 Basic response model. (Source System Safety Development Center (SSDC) course handouts.)...

The safety professionals at the System Safety Development Center were contacted for assistance in determining what had happened and in determining the appropriate course of action concerning the use of the buses at the end of the day to transport the work force back home. 

During the two decades since Bill Johnson introduced the original MORT chart, several modifications have been made by the Systems Safety Development Center. Prior to 1983, the first-tier events under accident on the specific control factors side of the chart were as depicted in Figure 18-7. 

The basic concept from which event and causal factors charts were developed can probably be traced back to Ludwig Benner and others at the National Transportation Safety Board. Benner developed a very similar technique called multilinear event sequencing (MES) and more recently sequentially timed events plotting (STEP). Event and causal factors charts were part of the overall MORT approach to system safety developed by W. G. Johnson for the Atomic Energy Commission in the early 1970s and further developed and taught by the Department of Energy s System Safety Development Center (SSDC). The use of the event and causal factors chart is sometimes referred to as causal factors analysis. 

Time-loss analysis is a special-purpose technique used to evaluate accident responses. System Safety Development Center courses that teach the technique credit the National Transportation Safety Board (specifically Driver and Benner) with developing and reporting the technique. 

SSDC System Safety Development Center Glossary of SSDC Terms and Acronyms, SSDC-28 (DOE)... 

Information about SSDC pamphlets may be obtained from Systems Safety Development Center, EG G Idaho, Inc., P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-3405. 

Ranging from the traditional views of early systems safety adherents and developers, through the complete viewpoint of large-scale practitioners such as Idaho s System Safety Development Center to the all-encompassing viewpoint of DeBono, Stephenson brings it all into perspective. He relates how those tasks are visualized and traditionally used by system safety practitioners. He demonstrates how some of the systems approaches interface with each other and what they mean to their mutual success. Finally, he has made clear how some systemic techniques interface and can combine to form a complete system to solve safety and health problems. 

System Safety Development Center (SSDC), EG G Idaho, Idaho Falls, Idaho, Bob Nertney, director (at that time), and the instructional staff, particularly Dick Buys (now with Los Alamos National Laboratory). While serving as a satellite instructor for the System Safety Development Center, I had the opportunity to teach MORT-based system safety and to interact with the SSDC staff and the Department of Energy and DOE contractor safety community. 

Bullock, M. G. Change control and analysis (SSDC-21). System Safety Development Center. Idaho Falls EG G Idaho, Inc., August 1981. 

Briscoe, G. J. September 1982. Risk Management Guide (SSDC-llRl). U. S. Department of Energy, System Safety Development Center EG G Idaho, Inc. Idaho Falls, ID. 

An example of how change analysis can be used to find an obscure direct cause relatively quickly is contained in a story frequently told by instructors from the Department of Energy s System Safety Development Center. 

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