This course advances the concept that humans and their organizations are
an integral part of the engineering paradigm and that it is up to engineering
to learn how to better
integrate considerations of people into engineering systems of all types.
This course focuses this concept on the assessment and management of the
risks associated with engineered systems during their life-cycle (concept
development through decommissioning). Risks (likelihoods and consequences)
are addressed in the contexts of the desired quality from an engineered
system including serviceability (fitness for purpose), safety (freedom from
undue exposure to harm), compatibility (on time, on budget, with happy customers
including the environment), and durability (freedom from unexpected degradations
in the other quality characteristics). Reliability is introduced to enable
assessment of the wide variety of hazards, uncertainties, and variabilities
that are present during the life-cycle of an engineered system. Proactive
(get ahead of the challenges), Reactive (learn the lessons from successes
and failures), and Interactive (realtime assessment and management of unknown
knowables and unknown unknowables) strategies are advanced and illustrated
to assist engineers in the assessment and management of risks.
