Does the guy at the top know what "risk tolerance" means in terms of safety?
Personally I doubt that more than a very small proportion of them do because, to most of them, risk is measured in financial impacts, and thus the most important to them are meeting, or not, targets for sales and profitability (and not "going under"!). John Allen W.London, UK From: John Allen [mailto:jral...@productsafetyinc.com] Sent: 06 March 2015 20:43 To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG; John Allen Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering Isn't the guy at the top supposed to set Risk Tolerance?? Best Regards, John John Allen USA _____ From: John Allen <john_e_al...@blueyonder.co.uk> Sent: Friday, March 6, 2015 2:35 PM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering And I've just thought of "another BIG one" myself that we must all have encountered at some time: - The "guy in the middle" does not think that the "guy at the top" would "like" the possible outcomes of a risk assessment, what it could do to his own "prospects", and/or "I do what I'm told, and so it's not my responsibility because nobody told me to do it". Ring some bells? John Allen W.London, UK From: John Allen [mailto:john_e_al...@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 06 March 2015 20:18 To: 'Ken Javor'; EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: RE: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering And the BIG ones just keep coming - bring 'em on! From: Ken Javor [mailto:ken.ja...@emccompliance.com] Sent: 06 March 2015 20:08 Tor: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering A key contributor to the Columbia disaster was the method they used to attach the insulating foam to the External Tank. They had changed it from the original method (which worked well) because it was not "green" enough. The new technique satisfied the arbiters "greenness" but it didn't work as well. The work of the safety engineers has to be measured against external forces like that. Ken Javor Phone: (256) 650-5261 _____ From: Cortland Richmond <k...@earthlink.net> Reply-To: Cortland Richmond <k...@earthlink.net> Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 14:54:04 -0500 To: <EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG> Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering I forwarded Dr Feynman's appendix to the Rogers Commission report to someone involved in processes that would, if followed, rein in this kind of thing. I am not an optimist. Cortland Richmond -----Original Message----- From: msherma...@comcast.net Sent: Mar 6, 2015 12:16 PM To: k...@earthlink.net Cc: EMC-PSTC Subject: Re: [PSES] Safety standards versus safety engineering Re "...and dismissal of identifiable risks deemed conveniently unlikely to occur." This is a real issue in organizations, and was a key contributor to the Columbia space shuttle disaster. NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board's final report explores this contributor a lot. The report is easy to find on the web. ... - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) <http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html> List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <sdoug...@ieee.org> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://www.ieee-pses.org/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <sdoug...@ieee.org> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>