C-LEVEL management continuously exhibits low consideration to best Practice Safety Engineering for protection of life, environment and assets. This is driven by greed and need for exorbitant financial gains in the construction services sector. Expert consideration and solutions to mitigate risks as required by regulatory bodies and made prescriptive in design standards and codes are consciously ignored. The myth of most shows in this sector in the AFRICAN region focus is on foreign imported products without any merit to local development and involvement of RISK ENGINEERS and SPECIFIERS who are SOLUTION OWNERS.
Such can be witnessed in engineering sector specific conferences like – IFSEC, BIG 5 CONSTRUCT, WORLD UTILITIES CONGRESS, AFRICA FACILITIES MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES OF PROFESSIONAL BODIES and exhibitions in the engineering sector.
This is the fundamental root cause of mass loss to lives and financier investments in the last decades. Furthermore, sustainable development is truncated especially in West Africa where donors repeat the same failed projects year after year with escalating debt accrued by the governments. This not only creates a huge development gap, but the economy and populace are put in an alarming poverty cycle.
Should basic SAFETY ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES be imbibed, and RAGAGEP made mandatory, the resulting impact on people, lives and environment will be astronomical.
Safety engineering as a discipline that deals with risk control by means of reduction or elimination of risks, reduction of engineering and impacts of such failures if they occur at all. Safety practice seeks to specifically curb possible effects of man-made and natural risks and hazards. Safety engineering takes into consideration operational risks, financial risks, environmental risks and other forms of measurable risks. Scope of design concepts for safety systems covers – lightning storms, noise levels, atmospheric air quality, water quality, extremes of ambient and localized temperatures, slip resistance of flooring materials, emergency evacuation and fire detection and suppression systems. These are applied in specialized systems like automotives, chemical, marine, aerospace, electrotechnical, information, construction and the built-environment systems by considering human behaviors, ergonomics, ecological friendliness, sustainability, reliability (fail safe), human-machine interaction, systems tolerances and safety factors in design, production, use and maintenance related risks. That means that safety engineering is application in the project life cycle and product life cycle of engineered systems.
Frequent fire incidents, engineering failures, operation accidents, loss of life, loss of business continuity, carbon emission and its effects, financial losses, legal litigations, operational hazards are among risks that safety systems available in engineering.
Risk of flooding is considered relative to mean sea level, tidal water levels, rainfall data, melting of glaciers, volume of surface runoff, soil behavior, structural failure and conditions of aquifers to establish project datums, drainage paths and capacity in civil engineering. Electrical inductance, lightning, surge, electrically propagated fire hazards and electrical failures are considered in providing electrical safety, such as embodied in IEC 16508 for safety of electrotechnical systems. Effects of sound, friction, crushing, shearing, cutting, impact, puncture, fluid pressure and motion of machines are considered in design, manufacturing and use of mechanical systems. Effects of chemical and physical properties of matters and manners of processing are much considered in technical and process safety. Business and commercial management systems have risks, ergonomic, which might be financial, legal, physiological, environmental or reputational in nature calling for adoption of quality management systems to embrace safe practices, processes, procedures and regulations. The likes of fraud risks, financial losses, solvency, liquidation and litigations are curtailed by imbibing management frameworks that supports business environment and managerial prudency for engineering practice. Unsafe acts in information management systems toady abound, ranging from – identity theft, cybercrimes, loss of sensitive information due to storage failure, internet risks like malware, ransomware, distributed denial of services, corporate account takeover, automated teller machine cash out, spam, phishing and other forms of organized internet crimes like hacking, kidnapping, piracy and censorship related crimes, which all constitute of risks associated with information systems.
Failures in engineering safety systems is achievable be application of engineering best practices based on code based compliance such as ISO 9001 – Quality Management Systems, ISO 45001 – Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, ISO 45001 – Environmental Management Systems, ISO – Information Security Management Systems, IEC 16508 – International Standard for Functional Safety for Electrical, Electronic and Programmable Electronic Safety Related Systems, NFPA 5000 – Building Construction and Safety Code; and other discipline specific standards, regulations, guidelines and codes in engineering with safety considerations.
