Satisfying the need of the Professional Safety Engineer for effective, and appropriate tools is a critical criterion for the development process, "From Research to Reality". In many circumstances the process is unorganized and rather haphazard, as individual university researchers respond to requests for proposals by various agencies, crafting their submissions based upon their current expertise and the resources of the particular institution, including the particular intellectual capital of the institution. In part, the process at Liberty Mutual Research Center is aligned rather differently and anticipates a priori, a subsequent function committed to turning the research findings and the resultant knowledge base into products, be they informational, software or hardware. Such products will enable safety engineers to design and manage safer work places for the American worker. This process has two necessary components, not found in research centers, the existence of a large group of Loss Prevention Consultants, highly analogous to the individual safety engineers working throughout industry, and the essential professional interface between the research domain and these practicing engineers. This afternoon the research activities will be discussed by Dr. Vincent Ciriello and my colleague, Mr. Wayne Maynard, will describe the way this knowledge base is brought to bear upon workplace design and management. By design, Mr. Maynard's function requires credentials including being a Certified Safety Professional and having a wide experience as a Safety Engineer and that he is located within the Research environment, participating as an advisor to, and in some cases as a contributor to the research program itself.
While we take as axiomatic our commitment to "From Research to Reality"TM, this commitment might be even more appropriately described as: "from reality to research to reality". The first component in the process is to determine what should be researched, bearing in mind our long term commitment to making a difference in the reality of the American workplace.
It has been apparent that historically, federal funding for research in areas of safety has not necessarily been allocated to the most significant problems in industry. As more recent history has shown, concerns in the media can sometimes cause a diversion of scarce resources away from the most significant problems. In an attempt to determine the areas for research, the sources of loss and the economic burden borne by the nation seems an appropriate metric for setting priorities. In daily practice, management is faced with conflicting demands: from advocacy organizations for particular interventions, such as groups concerned with latex allergies or repetitive trauma of the upper extremity. It may be buffeted by media attention, possibly involving horrific individual events, or by political controversy such as that generated by the proposed OSHA ergonomic standards and by Labor's own perception of these sources of concern. In many cases the perception of the risk manager is amalgam of these information sources which, if not congruent with the actual source of loss, may divert resources from the real issues.
