An information source for improving safe design decisions

While it is important to recognize that business risk, safety, performance and optimisation depend on the events that occur on the shopfloor, there must be a method for managers to use these issues within their decision making processes. The call for papers for this conference states that “success of our future business endeavours relies not only on information, but establishing which information is relevant, instructive and useful to make increasingly complex decisions.” Information that allows organizations to learn from accidents without repeating them will be of vital importance in any sustainable organization. This paper outlines how a transdisciplinary approach to engineering design, incorporating the disciplines of Engineering, Occupational Health and Safety and the Coroner can help management make decisions that result in safer work environments as well as better products. The paper reports on the process of developing a web based data base that is industrially focused and draws on coronial data to identify design issues that will have safety implications. The outcome from this project for organisations in general will be an improvement in the products and processes that are made available, and the confidence to know that accidents should not be repeated.