Associate Safety Professional Practice Exam

What is not a general design factor that is normally considered in system safety work?

1. Human factors

2. Risk assessment

3. Cost-benefit ratio

4. Regulatory compliance

The correct answer is: Cost-benefit ratio

The cost-benefit ratio is not typically regarded as a general design factor in system safety work. While economic considerations are certainly important in the broader context of project management and resource allocation, they do not directly influence the systemic safety design principles themselves. Instead, system safety work primarily focuses on identifying and mitigating risks, ensuring human factors are taken into account to optimize user interaction with the system, and adhering to regulatory compliance to meet safety standards and legal requirements. In system safety, human factors are crucial for understanding how people interact with systems, which can significantly influence safety outcomes. Risk assessment is integral to systematically identifying and evaluating potential hazards and determining the necessary controls to mitigate them, thereby ensuring that safety is built into the system from the ground up. Regulatory compliance establishes the legal and safety frameworks that must be followed to protect individuals and the environment. In contrast, the cost-benefit analysis, while important for making decisions regarding project viability, tends to be secondary to ensuring that safety is not compromised. Thus, while it may inform decisions around safety investments, it is not fundamentally a design factor in the safety systems themselves.