Basic Guide to System Safety
Chapter One
System Safety: An Overview
1.1 BACKGROUND
The idea or concept of system safety can be traced to the missile production industry
of the late 1940s. It was further defined as a separate discipline by the late 1950s
(Moriarty and Roland 1983) and early 1960s, used primarily by the missile, aviation,
and aerospace communities. Prior to the 1940s, system designers and engineers
relied predominantly on a trial-and-error method of achieving safe design. This
approach was somewhat successful in an era when system complexity was relatively
simple compared with those of subsequent development. For example, in the
aviation industry, this process was often referred to as the "fly - fix - fly" approach
to design problems (Moriarty and Roland 1983; Stephenson 1991). Simply stated,
aircraft design was based on existing or known technology. The aircraft was then
flown until problems developed or, in the worst case, it crashed. If design errors
were determined as the cause (as opposed to human, or "pilot" error), then the
design problems would b ... read full excerpt from Basic Guide to System Safety ebook
