Safety engineering prevents accidents and reduces human error in engineering design. It can be applied to various disciplines, and compliance is a complementary concern. Learning from mistakes and documenting test failures and successes can improve overall safety. Safety engineers can work as managers or consultants for companies or insurance companies.
Safety engineering is a field that focuses on preventing accidents and reducing opportunities for human error in engineered environments or engineering design. It can be applied to many disciplines, including aerospace, manufacturing, public works, and product design. Some projects apply security engineering principles to existing products or within completed environments to improve security and ensure code compliance. Others design features into the system engineering that make security an integral consideration from the outset.
Most engineering work is done within a framework of guiding specifications and codes. These guidelines develop as engineers and users discover what works and what doesn’t. Both small-scale product designs and large-scale transportation infrastructure projects apply safety engineering principles based on learning from initial development through use. Testing and modeling a product under development can provide clues as to what needs improvement. While reliability engineering will determine the likelihood that a product or system itself could fail, safety engineering can identify hazards or hazards to intended users.
Learning from mistakes can bring tough lessons when health and safety are involved. While major accidents and disasters such as plane crashes, industrial fires, medical equipment malfunctions, and bridge collapses are bound to happen, safety engineering professionals use these cases to study what went wrong. Using the lessons learned in these cases has led to the continued development of safety engineering. When preventive measures are identified, products and systems can be improved and risks reduced before accidents occur. Documenting test failures and successes can help engineers of all disciplines improve overall safety.
Compliance is typically a complementary concern of security engineering. If a dangerous or unsafe practice is discovered in an industrial process, for example, a safety engineer may be tasked with reviewing and updating procedures and educating employees on how to do their jobs more safely. Measurement of compliance can take the form of monitoring injuries and equipment or workflow failures. Making changes while monitoring and enforcing compliance can also be part of security engineering. This role can be complicated by the need to follow government, industry and corporate specifications and standards.
The opportunities for safety engineers are many. Working with an engineering or industrial company as a safety engineering manager is an option. Consulting as a contractor for companies looking to improve their safety record is also a possibility. Insurance companies may employ security specialists to consult on risk assessment and potential costs before providing insurance coverage. Assuming as little risk as possible is generally easier when safety is designed and opportunities for human error are minimized.
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