Safecomp-- my own talk...

Sept. 17, 2009

I forgot, yesterday, to say anything about the "invited talk" that _I_ gave.

Here's the abstract:

I forgot, yesterday, to say anything about the "invited talk" that _I_ gave.

Here's the abstract:

Process plants, chemical plants, refineries, offshore platforms, water and wastewater utilities and power generation and distribution systems that form a large part of the global critical infrastructure are made up of complex systems which are, in turn, made up of complex systems made up of simpler systems down to the level of the sensor, controller, and final control element. Traditionally, safety systems have been designed in a vacuum and poorly integrated with the plant process and the basic process control system. So, too have cyber and physical security been designed and implemented in a vacuum. The failure to account properly for the interaction of these complex systems in safety system, control system and alarm management system design was specifically named by the Baker Report as one of the factors in the BP Texas City disaster in 2005, and can clearly be seen in other incidents. Human factors engineering has been often disregarded, and operator training has never focused on dealing with the complicated interactions of these complex systems. The author presents a case for integrating safety systems, security systems, human factors, alarm management, and operator training in a unitized system to deal with the problem of complex systems.

I will be posting the printed version of the talk as a white paper in the white paper library. The official title of the talk is "Safety, Security and Complex Systems in Critical Infrastructure Protection."