A Systems Safety Approach to Occupational Electrical Safety

For the past decade, the discussion of occupational electrical safety in the U.S. has largely focused on compliance with NFPA70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace. Without taking away from the importance of the requirements in the standard, this paper describes a more comprehensive solution, based on proven concepts derived from systems safety engineering. This paper provides an overview of systems safety engineering and includes a 20 + year case history of a global Fortune 500 company´s effort to change the electrical safety culture in its operations to demonstrate results of applying systems safety techniques to electrical safety.