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Where does the International System Safety Society stand today, and what is its future? As the ISSS approaches its 50th anniversary, we think it appropriate and useful to explore the Society's future service to its members and their professional needs. If members support this initiative, we'll try to prepare a system safety analysis (SSA) of the Society in next year's columns. We'll need your inputs, including your expectations of the Society and how well its activities fulfill your professional needs. We'll use your feedback to address questions like:
- Are the Society's activities valuable enough to keep old members and attract new ones?
- What risks might jeopardize its membership maintenance and growth?
- What can it do to reduce those risks and improve its value to its members?
Our goal is to stimulate constructive critiques of the Society's current "system state," with the objective of improving its value to its members, to potential members, and to their clients.
QUO VADIS, ISSS?
In the early 1960s, managers, scientists and engineers implemented a new approach to dealing with safety risks that could threaten the success of the U.S. Air Force's ICBM and NASA's major aerospace programs, which were more complex than any systems designed previously. In 1963, Roger Lockwood and others who shared a common investment in the potential for the new system safety process founded a new organization to support their long-range visions for more widespread system safety application. They called their new organization the Aerospace System Safety Society.
We know how far system safety and its professional practices have come in the Society's first 50 years. But what about the future? Can the ISSS meet the safety demands of all the systems whose complexities continue to multiply throughout our technological world? Will continuing the Society's current activities fulfill the future professional needs of its membership? How can the Society support the needs of the profession and its members' goal of hazard and risk reduction?
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