Maintenance and Safety of Built Environment

Dependability represents a new approach to projecting, constructing and managing complex systems, and its primary objective is to guarantee them a safe life cycle. It should be noted that the dependability approach to building system project and management permits to obtain results better than the individual implementation of its sub-requirements, since by implementing a building process, these sub-requirements influence each other: the safety needs affect the building system dependability and maintainability levels, and at the same time they determine any possible prevention and protection actions. On the other hand, the maintenance activity guarantees a controlled and permanent efficacy of the safety assessment as well as of the predetermined dependability levels. The important contribution this requirement can provide results from projecting and managing building systems through the optimization not only of the technical availability but also of the safety driving factor. Indeed, the integration of these two sub-requirements gives to dependability a highly strategic value. Indeed, by recognizing hazards and risks, it is easier “to decide how to decide” under a field characterized by complexity.