VIRTHUALIS Solutions:

• Risk Assessment
• (IS)² -RAS
• (IS)² -RASVR
  
  
• Safety Management
• (IS)² -OSMVR
  
  
• Accident Investigation
  
• (IS)² -AISVR
  
  
• Training Activities
• (IS)² -TRVR

The current safety management methodology:

The overall goal of an SMS is to make a system “safe”, to maintain the safety of the system and to (continuously) improve safety wherever possible. The system is designed to include a set of “safety barriers” which can be physical in nature. They can also be technical systems or represent human activity. The safety barrier directly serves a safety function. The safety function is expressed in terms of actions which must be carried out in order to prevent an incident and to limit the effect when they do occur. The safety function is the element of "what" (people, resources etc) is needed to assure, increase and/or promote safety. The safety barrier is the "how" (management of people, resources, procedures) to implement safety functions. The current safety management methodology involves investigation (test and audit) of the safety barriers and an estimation of the level of confidence in each barrier throughout the system. Based on this information, decisions will be made on what action must be taken (e.g. updating procedures, reallocating workforce, provision of extra resources, training etc). Safety managers will be provided with input from both risk assessors and (where appropriate) accident/ investigation reports in order to make estimations of confidence in safety barriers and to make decisions on further action.

How VR could improve the risk assessment

VR can provide assistance with barrier design and barrier testing. Barrier testing could involve investigation of the level of confidence in a barrier and also the relationship and dependency between barriers (a combination of barriers may be more effective than one single barrier in some cases). A VR solution would also provide safety managers with the ability to view different barriers and resultant actions in order to make more informed decisions as to which barriers to choose and which course of action to take. VR can simulate modifications to the calculation of confidence levels. Safety managers can witness the effects that alternative safety management practices are likely to have on the system. VR provides scenario context (environmental, behavioural, performance) for decision making. Improvements in the ability to record richer data from training, risk assessment and accident investigation environments is likely to result in more prudent safety management decisions.