by Anonymous and George Kondreck
[Editor’s note: This letter to the editor and editor’s response originally appeared in Vol 27 Issue 3 of Hazard Prevention (now Journal of System Safety) in 1991. It has been reformatted from the original, but the text is otherwise unchanged.]
Dear Editor,
Mr. Berry’s recent essay in Hazard Prevention, “Is System Safety The Answer?” contains many interesting points. This letter addresses only his statement that “As a result of an undefined career path, the appeal of system safety to young professionals is low. ” I would agree with his statement, if it were reworded to say “As a result of what appears to be an undefined career path …“ In either case, corrective action of the society is needed.
A major cause for this problem is that our society and many of its members speak and act as if system safety is, or should be, a life-long career. It may be true that system safety is a life-long career for many system safety practitioners, it isn’t true for all of us. For some of us, system safety is part of a broader professional career. I believe that we could attract more professionals (new and experienced) to system safety if we made it clear that system safety can be part of a broader career plan. I also believe that we can show that safety professionals who have non-safety experience and aspirations are a valuable asset to safety and non-safety management and to system safety “lifers.”
To illustrate my point, I cite my own experience. My career goal has always been to be a versatile engineer who could command a good salary while working on things of interest to me. I first became involved in safety 20 years ago after working 16 years in design, project engineering, and quality. During these last 20 years I have gone from safety to quality to reliability to safety to design to safety to systems and back to safety. Each change was at my request. Each was designed to promote my career as an engineer (not as a system safety engineer). My experience in each specialty has made me more “salable” as an engineer in the other specialties. It also permitted me to bring new perspectives to my safety peers and to promote system safety in non-safety organizations. Finally, it resulted in two promotions beyond what is normally considered to be ‘the end of the line” for the engineers who choose not to go into management. These promotions would not have occurred if management didn’t believe that broad experience is important. The promotions resulted in pay equal to or better than that of some managers for whom I worked. In other words, system safety helped me attain career satisfaction.
My experience is not unique. I know others who have had similar experience. I know people who had non-safety experience, became system safety managers. moved on to management of other activities, and then rose to high positions in corporate management. And I know persons who started their careers in system safety and are rising up the corporate ladder in non-safety areas. I believe that many Hazard Prevention readers know of similar career success stories.
To help attract professionals to a career in system safety, the society and its members should publicize the success stories and stop lamenting perceived but nonexistent career limits. The society should also encourage its members to define their own career paths and to use their own initiative to attain their career objectives.
Name withheld by request
The author of the letter makes two very valid points that I would like to expand upon. First is that system safety need not be a lifelong career, and second, that the Society and its members are responsible for promoting the profession, either as a career or as part of a career.
Many times, in this space, I have mentioned that I believe the discipline of system safety to be a part of systems engineering. One of the aspects I like best about this job is the broad overview of the system that it gives me. Like systems engineers, system safety engineers specify requirements, analyze design concepts and verify performance across a variety of subsystem disciplines. Only the lead systern engineer has a broader view of the system than the system safety engineer. In that respect, system safety is more easily a path to lead systems engineer than to any other defined role in engineering That can be a very senior engineering position depending on the scope of the system involved. That is also a career path to program management and beyond. I don’t see a limitation here, but an opportunity.
In this space I have also commented on the fact that the system safety perspective of the system is slightly, but significantly, different from the systems engineering perspective. We have to concentrate on adverse effects of normal operation and malfunctions. The system engineer strives to achieve a performance goal, considering only how malfunctions and normal operation contribute to or inhibit that goal. However, the more I practice system safety, the more I see the systems engineer’s viewpoint. When I review system specifications, test procedures and other analyses, I not only derive the safety impacts, but also achieve an appreciation for their contribution to the successful outcome of the program. Also, the more I interact with systems engineers, the more I see an appreciation in them for my perspective. A good system safety engineer should be a good systems engineer.
I believe that if we promote system safety as a part of systems engineering we will enhance the profession both with attracting new engineers and with its reputation among other engineers. If a “tour” in system safety were a part of the career path of systems engineers, it would broaden the young engineers’ experience and provide the infusion of diverse talent that this profession needs. System safety need not be a lifelong career, and for many engineers it should not be. That “locked-in” attitude would discourage most from entering the profession, even for a brief sojourn.
Of course, if we are to promote system safety as not only a career, but also a part of a larger career path, we must better define the practice. MIL-STD-882X is not sufficient. We must promote system safety courses in universities as a part of the systems engineering curriculum. We must also change some of the attitudes in the various industries in which we work. Many of them still don’t see the difference between the industrial safety engineer and the system safety engineer. We need to talk to management about setting up rotation programs to allow promising systems engineers the opportunity to practice system safety for a period of time. And we should, as the included letter mentions, pub licize the success stories. I’m all for pub lishing anything to do with system safety, now if I could just find the authors…
As always, the future of this profession is in the hands of the professionals. We can moan about the lack of respect the profession generates, the lack of funds, the lack of manpower, etc., or we can take a more proactive role. It really is up to us.
– GK (George Kondreck, Technical Editor, Hazard Prevention, 1991)
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