Workplace Safety v System Safety

It is a common misconception that workplace safety and system safety have the same objectives. In short, wrong. With few exceptions, mixing up workplace and system safety management is not only counterproductive, it can also lead to serious consequences. In the past (think a 100 years ago), there was a large overlap between “industrial” and “product” safety efforts, but that was before we introduced complex systems into our everyday environment.

A brief historical perspective:

The industrial revolution fundamentally changed the production and transport of goods, including widespread application of heavy machinery in unimaginable workplace conditions. In today’s terms, working with (or near) those early machines can only be described as an extreme level of risk to your personal safety. Countless lives were lost and workers were simply replaced on the production line. Until the late 19th century, there was no legal protection, no safety standards or organisations, no workers’ compensation, etc.

Successful trade union campaigns led to government interventions and early versions of workplace health and safety (WHS) protections being introduced in Europe and the United States. Learning from horrific witness accounts, engineers realised that safety devices can prevent a large number of common injuries and started to incorporate safety features into machinery designs and factory settings.

By the end of World War 2, workplace and product safety engineers had a very different role, though. The war effort required whole industries to ramp up production. Unfortunately, the increased production rates led to a significant jump in the number of serious work injuries and fatalities. The losses were not sustainable, so an army of WHS specialists were trained and deployed to address the underlying issues.

On the other hand, the war also led to major technological breakthroughs and complex engineering designs. Some of the post-war examples are: the jet era in commercial aviation, widespread use of nuclear power, or the space race. System safety traces its origins to the concerns associated with deploying military systems that have a catastrophic potential for the whole of society, including ballistic missiles, strategic bombers, nuclear submarines, etc.

What is at stake here?

“nearly 3 million people died of work-related accidents and diseases…and 395 million workers sustained non-fatal work injuries worldwide…” Source: ILO in Geneva (2023).

I am puzzled that even some in academia are struggling to clearly differentiate between system safety and WHS management, not to mention key stakeholders in safety-critical industries. Allow me to demonstrate the point with some real-life examples:

With reference to the paint hangar illustrated in the image above, would you prefer an industrial safety expert or a system safety engineer to design and manage the necessary risk controls, in order to meet strict safety and environmental protocols?

Following that train of thought, would you be confident to task a system safety practitioner to introduce and manage industrial X-ray operations in a similar hangar setting?

I could go on with the examples but you probably have a fairly good idea about the problem by now. I feel fortunate enough to have been in charge of designing and building aircraft and engine overhaul facilities in Europe and Australia. One could say that I have a reasonable grasp of industrial and environmental safety standards and WHS laws. As a system safety guy, I would say that I know enough about WHS to know where my limits are. Over the years, as a responsible manager, I had to do my fair share of investigating workplace incidents. I never lost a single soul, but I clearly remember every single incident.

Summary

While there is some commonality between underlying engineered solutions, workplace safety and system safety are two different beasts. The two fields have specific objectives, demanding specialist training, skills, and experience levels. Along with others in my domain, I would argue that there should be a more integrated approach to combining best practices for the benefit of all, especially in the context of more and more autonomous systems popping up in our environment. In fact, we seem to be doing the exact opposite: the more recent trend appears to be a short-sighted approach where autonomous systems are declared “safe-to-operate” by subjecting their prototype designs to inadequate WHS compliance reviews.

So, what can be done right now? Firstly, unless it is a relatively simple design with only minor WHS consequences, do not ask your system safety expert to wear both hats. Whilst every engineer should have a good grasp of relevant WHS and environmental laws, there is a reason why we have WHS experts, so involve them whenever there is a potential for seriously harming someone at work. And with my professor hat on, I will do my best to educate the next generation of system safety engineers, making sure that they understand and approach their WHS counterparts with a healthy dose of respect.