BFT -603- Human Values & Professional Ethics

Unit -4
Safety, Responsibilities and Rights

Dr. Manish Bhat

UNIT IV-- SAFETY, RESPONSIBILITIES AND RIGHTS

Safety and Risk – Assessment of Safety and Risk – Risk

Benefit Analysis and Reducing Risk -

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SAFETY AND RISK

 Safety was defined as the risk that is known and

judged as acceptable.
 But, risk is a potential that something unwanted and
harmful may occur.
 It is the result of an unsafe situation, sometimes
unanticipated, during its use.
 Probability of safety = 1 – Probability of risk
 Risk = Probability of occurrence × Consequence in
magnitude

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 Different methods are available to determine the
risk (testing for safety)
 Testing on the functions of the safety-system
components.
1)Destructive testing: In this approach, testing is done
till the component fails. It is too expensive, but very
realistic and useful.

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1) Prototype testing: In this approach, the testing is done on a proportional scale
model with all vital components fixed in the system. Dimensional analysis could
be used to project the results at the actual conditions.
2) Simulation testing: With the help of computer

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Safety must be an integral part of any
engineering design.
In other words of William W.Lawrence, A thing
is safe if its risks are justified to be acceptable”.
So a design or thing is said be safe, if for the
person who judges, the perceived risk is high.
In short, safety means an acceptable risk.

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But, the drawbacks of definition of Lawrence are
Under estimation of risks
Over estimation of risks
No estimation of risks

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A modified version of Lawrence definition is

“A thing is safe if, were its risks fully known, those risks would
be judged acceptable in light of settled principles. More fully, a
thing is safe (to a certain degree) with respect to a given person
or group at a given time if, were they fully aware of its risks and
expressing their most settled values, they would judge those
risks to be acceptable (to that certain degree)”
The difficulties in Lawrence definition are overcome by
Knowledge and Settled value principles – helps to rule out the
irrelevant judgments

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Safety is frequently thought in terms of degrees and comparisons.
The degree to which a person or group, judging on the basis of their settled values,
would decide that the risks of something are more or less acceptable in comparison
with the risks of some other thing.
We interpret “things” to include products as well as services,
institutional

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RISK

When a thing or product is proved to be dangerous or

hazardous then it is unsafe.
A risk is a potential that something unwanted and harmful
may occur”. A risk the possibility of suffering harm or loss.
Risk is defined as the probability of a specified level of
hazardous consequence being realized. Risk (R) is thus a
product of probability (P) and consequence (C) which is given
by the equation R = P X C.

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On the basis of technology, risk includes the dangers of bodily harms or economic
laws or environmental degradation.
Good engineering practice has always been concerned with safety. Whenever the
society is more influenced by technology there is more possibility of facing risks not
only by the users but also by the producers. It causes ecological imbalance. So safety
demand will be higher.

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A risk may fall into one of the following categories
Low consequence, Low probability (can be ignored)
High consequence, High probability
Low consequence, High probability
High consequence, Low probability

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Obviously we need to concentrate on the third and fourth categories of risk. The
third category of events, the so-called “learning incidents” is precursor to high
consequence of major events. The fourth category comes under the major hazards
control and requires special attention. The risk analysis is mandatory for this
category of “major events”.
A disaster = A serious continued event; A state of unpreparedness.

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Acceptability of risk

William D. Rowe says “A risk is acceptable when

those affected are generally no longer (or not)
apprehensive about it. Doubtfulness depends mainly
on how the people take the risk or how people
perceive it. This perception of risk is mostly influenced
by the following factors. I. Voluntarism and control
Though people know that their actions are unsafe,
their involvement of risk is called voluntary risk. They
take up these kinds of risky actions for thrill,
amusement and fun

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Though people know that their actions are unsafe, their involvement of risk is
called voluntary risk. They take up these kinds of risky actions for thrill, amusement
and fun

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ii) Effect of information on risk assessments
The ways in which the information necessary for
taking a decision has a great influence on how risks
are perceived. Many experiments have proved that the
manner in which information about a danger is
presented can lead to reverse preferences about how
to deal with that danger.
iii) Job - Related risks / Job – Related Pressures

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It depends upon the nature of the job. In most of the cases of employees in high
risk jobs, don’t have any options but to undertake them merely because of
compulsion. They rarely use the available safety equipments.
Ex: working in a steel plant or chemical plant.
So, while designing and equaling the work stations, the engineers must check that.

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iv) Magnitude and proximity
Our reaction to risk may be affected by the magnification or
the personal identification or relationship of victims.
Misperceptions of numbers can easily make us overlook losses
that are far greater than the numbers reveal by themselves.
Lessons for the engineers

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Regarding the public conceptions for safety, engineers have to face two problems.
First one is the optimistic attitude.i.e the things or actions are familiar to them, they
never hurt them, and these actions can be controlled by them and present no real
risk. Second one is pessimistic attitude. This attitude comes when the public feel
that an accident kills may people, affects their inmates, they consider those risks as
high ones.
 The risk communication and the risk management efforts must be structured as a
two way process.

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Assessment of safety and risk

It is very difficult to attain hundred percent absolute safety. In

an engineering product, if there is any improvement in safety, it
often goes with an increase in the cost of the product. On the
other side, the products which are not safe always increase the
secondary costs to the producer such as warranty expenses,
loss of customer’s good will and down time in the production
process etc.
An engineer must know the safety measures before assessing
a risk of any product. The factors may be like:

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Does the engineer have the right data?
Is he satisfied with the present design?
How does he test the safety of a product?
How does he measure and weigh the risks with benefits for a product?
A stress on high safety and low risks leads to high primary costs and low secondary
cost and vice-versa.

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Knowledge of risks

It is the data in designing a product. Though

past experience and historical data give better
information about the safety of products
designing, it is still inadequate.
The reasons for the inadequacies are:

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The information is not freely shared among industries and
There are also new applications of old technologies that provide available data
which are less useful.

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Uncertainties in design

Risk in a product arises due to so many uncertainties faced by all kinds of

engineers such as the design engineer, the manufacturing engineer and also
the sales and application engineer. This is also the knowledge required to
assess the risk of a product. So, in order to minimize the risk involved in any
product an engineer has to investigate the following criteria:
i) Purpose of designing
The purpose of designing a product has lot of uncertainties in its design
itself.
ii) Application of the product

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Uncertainties may also be based on the type of loading on that design and the uses
of that design. In history, there is a best example to prove this. When Napoleon’s
army crossed a wooden bridge by marching in step, the bridge had collapsed. The
design of that bridge could not bear that heavy load.
iii) Materials and the skill used for producing the product
There are also uncertainties regarding the materials and the level of skills used in
designing and producing the product. For example, changing economic conditions,
types of materials and also unfamiliar environmental conditions can affect the
design

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TESTING FOR SAFETY
Once a product is designed, both the prototypes and finished
product must be thoroughly checked and tested. This testing is
to determine whether the product meets out the specifications
and also to see whether the products are safe. The importance
of proper testing can be explained by the disaster of a Russian
submarine named “Kursk”. It sank in August 2000 and everyone
in the ship was killed. The sinking had been caused by an
explosion in the “torpedo room” which made a large hole in the
body of the submarine. Many of the crew members survived
the initial explosion, but died because they were unable to
escape from the submarine and no efforts at the rescue by
other ships were successful.

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The Russian naval Engineers told the “Krusk” was equipped with a rescue capsule
that was designed to allow the crew members to float safely to the surface in an
emergency. But due to some reasons, this safety system was never tested. So, it is
essential that in any engineering design, all the safety

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SAFETY AND RISK ANALYSIS

Recent occurrences of large scale accidents in which

many lives were lost or in which great damage was
caused to the environment has lead to more attention
being paid to safety within industrial plants or
installations.
 As a result of this attention, risk analysis techniques
have come to play an ever-increasing role.

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 Risk reduction can take place at different levels viz by implementing the inherent
safety provisions during the designing stage, applying safety measures, preventing
or limiting damage, providing safety zones around industrial plants and by
emergency planning.
Each of these applications demands a specific approach

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RISK ANALYSIS

Risk analysis is used for the assessment of the

hazards associated with an industrial or commercial
activity and can be summarized by 3 questions given
below:
What can go wrong? – Hazard Identification
What are the effects and consequences?-
consequence Analysis
How often it will happen? - Probability estimation

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RISK-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Risk- benefit analysis is a method that helps the engineers to

analyze the risk in a project and to determine whether a project
should be implemented or not. It is very much closer to cost-
benefit analysis.

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Risk – benefit analysis is being conducted for finding out answers for the following
questions: I. Is the product worth applying the risk-benefit analysis? II. What are the
benefits? III. Do they over weigh the risks?
The major reasons for the analysis of the risk benefit are:
1.To know risks and benefits and weigh them each
2.To decide on designs, advisability of product/project
3.To suggest and modify the design so that the risks are eliminated or reduced

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Thank You
Case Study – Unit 2

Case Study – Unit 4 + Time Management Matrix+ Cross word

(Unit 1)

https://www.drishtiias.com/ethics/case-studies

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