201003 – Symons – Design Acceptance – What About the People?

Most safety management activities for say, signalling and control systems concentrate on
measuring conformance to processes against standards and procedures plus demonstration
through risk assessments, V&V activities, arguments and evidence that the system as designed is safe and meets the requirements.

During these processes there is usually some emphasis on the human contribution e.g. Human
factors as affecting operations and maintenance. However, to achieve an accepted design
against a set of requirements can be problematic due to the behaviours of some of the actors,
both in the transmitting and in the receiving sides of the process.

This paper will describe the approach by the Novo Rail alliance to improve the processes relating to the delegation of Engineering Authority and achieving a better Design Acceptance process to support its extensive program of works.