[SystemSafety] words you cannot use at GM

Wed May 21 11:17:25 CEST 2014

Or Ford, or any large industrial manufacture, this practice is almost
universal in US companies.

The primary purpose is to avoid people putting dumb stuff down in emails and
the like which can then be used as a sound bite in court.

Having had to suffer several of these training programs Thomas Maier is
correct in the way it is intended to be used i.e. “instead of ‘safety’, use
‘has potential safety implications”.

So you are strongly discouraged from saying “this will go up like a bomb and
will kill millions in hideous fireballs”, instead you say something bland
and emotion free such as “may possibly contribute to a thermal event and
possibly pose a potential safety issue. We should discuss next week’s
meeting. Please call me if you wish to discuss this sooner”. Everyone knows
what you mean.

The important point here is that it has nothing to do with engineering; but
everything to do with living in “Lawland”.

Lawland is like the real world but operates under a completely different set
of rules. It was explained to me like this; 

When on the stand you have a pot of $3 for responding to each question.

For each word you use, you spend $1.

“No” and “Yes” leave you with $2 in hand.

“I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” leave you in balance. 

The aim of the GAME is to have a positive balance.

Sad isn’t it.

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Maier, Thomas
Sent: 21 May 2014 09:55
To: nfr; Bielefield Safety List
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] words you cannot use at GM

Reference to the GM-list only was made. Don’t know the paper you are
referring to, in particular how the term “safety” was employed by it.

GM provides the following guidance, or whatever you want to call it:
“instead of ‘safety’, use ‘has potential safety implications”. So, is
“safety” forbidden or not?

Med venlig hilsen / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Thomas Maier

E:  <mailto:Thomas.Maier at ul.com> Thomas.Maier at ul.com

T: +45 42 13 74 52

Fra: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] På vegne af nfr
Sendt: 21. maj 2014 10:38
Til: Bielefield Safety List
Emne: Re: [SystemSafety] words you cannot use at GM

"Safety" is not forbidden? 

Some years ago, when I edited papers for the annual System Safety Symposium
(in England), I received a call, rather close to the delivery deadline, from
an author in a US-based automotive company. 

"We've got a problem," he said. "The company reviewers have told me that I
have to remove every mention of the word 'safety'. What can we do?"

I suggested replacing "safety" with "risk" and adjusting the wording
accordingly.

"I've tried that," he replied, "but I'm not allowed to use the word 'risk'
either."

It was too late for me to commission a replacement paper, and our "solution"
was to employ the word "reliability", which was not what the paper was
about.

Felix.

On 21 May 2014, at 09:14, Maier, Thomas wrote:

A correction regarding IEC 615011: 

That minimum failure rate per IEC 61511 is specified in Part 1 clause 8.2.2:
“The dangerous failure rate of a BPCS (which does not conform to IEC 61511)
that places a demand on a protection layer shall not be assumed to be better
than 10-5 per hour.”

A question regarding legal damages by non-zero risk statements:

The US National Electrical Code for machinery (standard NFPA 79) normatively
requires: “Where failures or disturbances in the electrical equipment cause
a hazardous condition or damage to the machine or the work in progress,
measures shall be taken to minimize the probability of the occurrence of
such failures or disturbances.” It informatively refers to IEC 61508, IEC
62061, ISO 13849 in this context, i.e. to standards which are based on
probabilistic quantification of risk.

How much legal protection do you actually get as a manufacturer in a
liability law suit under US jurisdiction by showing compliance to NFPA 79?

And in the automotive domain: How about ISO 26262, which also allows
quantitative arguments in the safety case for programmable electronic
controls on board road vehicles, and which has been written and is supported
by the global automotive industry as state-of-science-and-art?

A comment regarding the qualification as “Orwellian” of the 69 words (by the
way I was only aware of the “Milwaukee 7” so far, should these be called the
“Detroit 69”? 
J):

Even though the list looks a bit funny to me, I think this is the kind of
language regulation you generally want for technical / scientific writing. I
cannot see any corporate agenda of truth-hiding or any other evil intention
behind. And please note also that the word “safety” is not forbidden.
Guidance is provided, very much in line how “safety” is used in functional
safety standards. 

Med venlig hilsen / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Thomas Maier

E:  <mailto:Thomas.Maier at ul.com> Thomas.Maier at ul.com

T: +45 42 13 74 52

Fra: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] På vegne af
Peter Bernard Ladkin
Sendt: 21. maj 2014 09:20
Til: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Emne: Re: [SystemSafety] words you cannot use at GM

This would seem to be one of the disadvantages of not taking IEC/ISO
standards seriously. In European arbitration, the claim "the applicable
international standard says...." is mostly taken very seriously by the
arbitrators, I understand.

Not that the standards are perfect, or even wonderful..... :-) But they do
tend to say " there is no such thing as zero risk". Indeed, in IEC 61511
you're only "allowed" to assume that an otherwise-unqualified process
control system has a failure rate of 1 in 10 ophours or worse.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited

On 21 May 2014, at 00:02, Eric Scharpf <EScharpf at exida.com> wrote:

Unfortunately this is not surprising. I have dealt with other US companies
which have indicated that any statement acknowledging a non-zero risk from
their equipment invites legal damages in potential product liability
lawsuits.

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