Publications
Safety Assessment for Explosive Risk (SAFER) peer review report
At the direction of the Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board (DDESB), a Peer Review Team was established to review the status of development of the risk-based explosives safety siting process and criteria as currently implemented in the software 'Safety Assessment for Explosive Risk (SAFER)' Version 2.1. The objective of the Peer Review Team was to provide an independent evaluation of the components of the SAFER model, the ongoing development of the model and the risk assessment process and criteria. This peer review report addressed procedures; protocols; physical and statistical science algorithms; related documents; and software quality assurance, validation and verification. Overall, the risk-based method in SAFER represents a major improvement in the Department of Defense (DoD) approach to explosives safety management. The DDESB and Risk Based Explosives Safety Criteria Team (RBESCT) have made major strides in developing a methodology, which over time may become a worldwide model. The current status of all key areas of the SAFER code has been logically developed and is defensible. Continued improvement and refinement can be expected as implementation proceeds. A consistent approach to addressing and refining uncertainty in each of the primary areas (probability of event, consequences of event and exposure) will be a very beneficial future activity.