Student ID: 37-165035 Name: Ade Hidayat

Resilience Engineering: No.1 (2017.4.5) due April 19th

The Difference of Resilience Engineering from the Conventional Approaches of Safety

Management and Safety Study

By words, we can easily differentiate a safe system and a resilient system. A system that is safe
keeps itself far away from various threats. It has a kind of shield that could protect it from being
attacked or being exposed to any unfavorable situations. However, that things look safe doesn’t
mean they are. Sometimes when we think it is safe, danger is lurking nearby. In fact, when an
accident actually happened, most of the time, it becomes a disaster because the system fails to
adapt quickly. That is where the developing concept of resilience engineering plays it role.

A resilient system focuses on how to cope with any difficult situation. The system has the
ability to adjusts its functioning, and regain its stability quickly. Instead of keeping distance
from unwanted condition, it prepares counter measures to face the unknown-yet-exist dangers.
The system has this flexibility to reform in any circumstances. So, when an accident happens,
the system can deal with it and return to its normal state as soon as possible.

Technically, a conventional safety management system defines safety goals and provides
principle of prevention. The organization follows the rules and observes the compliance of
safety regulations. Furthermore, for continuous safety improvement, there will be a frequent
audits and revisions to the existing safety regulations. This procedure seems pretty straight
forward and less abstract, because everything is well calculated and made based on related
experiences.

On the other hand, the thing we do in engineering a resilient system is defining a clear
instruction for a safe decision making; within which limits and under which conditions a system
could deviate from the standard operational procedure. By this means, the system could
maneuver freely inside the predetermined boundary. In contrast with the former theory, a
resilient system avoids blind following of rules because there are unlimited kind of situation
which is not always suitable with the designed procedures. Although this approach could
probably reduce shortcomings in safety management, it is not very easy to develop solutions
which could be implemented immediately.

As a theory, resilience engineering has a broader and deeper view regarding the meaning,
method/procedure, and area of implementation. Although it becomes more popular and gaining
importance these days, many engineering field such as chemical plant and industrial
environment apparently still stick to the conventional safety management because it is more
practical. However, regardless the differences, resilience engineering approach certainly will
enhance its predecessor. Up to this point, we have figured out the main difference between
resilience engineering and the conventional safety management and safety study.