This is sort of an extension from a related earlier post.
We all know that safety is important. We need to keep people, whether workers or the public, safe from harm, and a lot of expertise is used in developing plans and designs and systems and operating procedures and operational influence and "getting people to do the right thing" and the rest.
The earlier post invited members to comment on "What Do Engineers Contribute to Safety that Other Professions Do Not?". There has been a good discussion about that point, and I'm sure others will follow with great insights.
In my experience, there has been a mainly begrudging acceptance of "safety guys" out in the field, showing up on a work location, and doing what they hopefully know about and are paid to do. "Safety guys" fall into a few categories: senior executives that have to be seen to walk the talk, local management/supervision that want to make sure they do their job and get people to follow the procedures and safety rules and get the job done, people labelled as "safety inspectors" or "safety leaders" or "safety advisers" or similar, good people, that generally embed within the workforce and provide a stimulus to do things safely and advise with onsite experience, and then there are safety engineers.
The earlier post will hopefully flesh out what it is that a "Safety Engineer does to Contribute to Safety", but this post is to get some feedback on the difference between a highly credentialed, well trained, enthusiastic and motivated Safety Professional, of which there are many and are extremely valued, and that of a Safety Engineer.
Your comments and feedback appreciated.
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Tom
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