Project SEBRA Systems Perspective on Industrial Fire Safety – a study on fire safety organization and usability
At the industrial workplace, conflicts may occur between production and fire safety solutions, sometimes to the point where fire protective routines or installations are bypassed. A common answer to such issues is to strengthen administrative barriers such as rules, safety information and training. However, in an industrial organization where resources are already strained, even more checks and routines will only run the risk of aggravating the problem at hand. The problem could instead be viewed as an effect of poor design. In the construction process, there are no established ways to ensure that end-user needs are taken into account when fire protection is designed, and the construction project’s main incentive is to keep the construction cost down. Instead, costs are pushed to the operational phase in the form of reduced production and lower safety levels.