QUALITY, RELIABILITY, HUMAN AND ORGANIZATION FACTORS IN DESIGN OF MARINE STRUCTURES

Experience has amply demonstrated that Human ax! Organization Factors (HOF) play important roles in determining the quality and reliability of marine structures such as ships, pipelines, and offshore platforms. This paper addresses HOF in the context of quantitative reliability analyses that are intended to help imprtfve the quality of marine structures. Quality is defined as the combination of acceptable and reliability, durability, and com structure. A classification of HOF is proposed that addresses individual, organization, equipment I hardware, procedures I software, and environmental considerations. Alternatives for improved management of HOF are addressed including Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA I QC), ax! design of error tolerant structures. A generic design process for marine structures is defined. Based on these develop­ ments, a generic Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) is developed that addresses HOF in addition to the structure system aspects that have been traditionally addressed by QRA. Error promoting characteristics of complex design guidelines and computer software are discussed. A companion paper illustrates application of these developments to a ship structure problem involving design of the critical details for fatigue (Bea, 1995).