1. This standard is approved for use by all Departments and Agencies within the Department of Defense (DoD).
2. The DoD is committed to protecting: private and public personnel from accidental death, injury, or occupational illness; weapon systems, equipment, material, and facilities from accidental destruction or damage; and public property while executing its mission of national defense. Within mission requirements, the DoD will also ensure that the quality of the environment is protected to the maximum extent practical. The DoD has implemented environmental, safety, and health efforts to meet these objectives. Integral to these efforts is the use of a system safety approach to manage the risk of mishaps associated with DoD operations. A key objective of the DoD system safety approach is to include mishap risk management consistent with mission requirements, in technology development by design for DoD systems, subsystems, equipment, facilities, and their interfaces and operation. The DoD goal is zero mishaps.
3. This standard practice addresses an approach (a standard practice normally identified as system safety) useful in the management of environmental, safety, and health mishap risks encountered in the development, test, production, use, and disposal of DoD systems, subsystems, equipment, and facilities. The approach described herein conforms to the acquisition procedures in DoD Regulation 5000.2-R and provides a consistent means of evaluating identified mishap risks. Mishap risk must be identified, evaluated, and mitigated to a level acceptable (as defined by the system user or customer) to the appropriate authority, and compliant with federal laws and regulations, Executive Orders, treaties, and agreements. Program trade studies associated with mitigating mishap risk must consider total life cycle cost in any decision. Residual mishap risk associated with an individual system must be reported to and accepted by the appropriate authority as defined in DoD Regulation 5000.2-R. When MIL-STD-882 is required in a solicitation or contract and no specific references are included, then only those requirements presented in section 4 are applicable.
4. This revision applies the tenets of acquisition reform to system safety in Government procurement. A joint Government/Industrial process team oversaw this revision. The Government Electronic and Information Technology Association (GEIA), G-48 committee on system safety represented industry on the process action team. System safety information (e.g., system safety tasks, commonly used approaches, etc.) associated with previous versions of this standard are in the Defense Acquisition Deskbook (see 6.8). This standard practice is no longer the source for any safety-related data item descriptions (DIDs).
5. Address beneficial comments (recommendations, additions, and deletions) and any pertinent information that may be of use in improving this document to: HQ Air Force Materiel Command (SES), 4375 Chidlaw Road, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-5006. Use the Standardization Document Improvement Proposal (DD Form 1426) appearing at the end of this document or by letter or electronic mail.
