In the systems thinking approach, safety is seen as an emergent property that must be engineered into the system rather than added to a completed design. The following two courses provide an overview of the various theories of accident causation and introduce the system engineering approach to hazard and accident analysis.
APS1101H: System Dynamic Risk Management
Julian Lebenhaft
The course provides new perspectives on safety and human error and shows how to incorporate humans in complex automated systems using systems thinking.
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APS1034H: Making Sense of Accidents
Julian Lebenhaft
This course introduces the main theoretical approaches of systems thinking, organization structure and crisis management for understanding catastrophic accidents. Highlighting the socio-technical limits to the prevention of severe accidents, it emphasizes the importance of incorporating such insights in engineering design with the aim of reducing the likelihood of disasters.
More info on course | Course timetable