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The breakthrough offered by the VIRTHUALIS technology is the opportunity of moving from static paper-based assessments to dynamic virtual simulations.
Safety analyses like HAZOP, FMEA, Fault Tree (FT), Event Tree (ET), Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA), Task Analysis (TA), in which critical situations are just imagined by safety analysts, will be moulded in such a way that HF concepts can permeate field operators minds' through dynamic images.
In particular this will allow safety analysts to easily and quickly understand and integrate HF concepts into safety analyses. Indeed, HF issues are difficult to communicate, to understand and to envision due to their complex nature. By immerging sharp-end operators, teams, safety analysts, managers into Virtual Environments (VEs) suitably modelled for the specific analysis to perform, it will be possible to “almost” experience safety-critical situations amplifying people capabilities and enabling them to suitably exploit HF concepts when performing safety analyses.
Existing and new HF knowledge, created to cope with the safety case at hand, will be exploited to enable:
- operator’s performance tracking and his/her reliability to be measured;
- new design alternatives to be conceived and created;
- informed safety-critical decisions to be made effectively;
- appropriate and effective training programs to be created;
- experimentation and planning of maintenance operations.
In addition to the HF Lab, the project will create and integrated safety methodology defining how risk assessment, accident investigation, training and safety management be built on the same knowledge framework and can use and dynamically re-use the same knowledge.