2016 The Year in Review

2016 is almost over, and a new year is fast approaching. R2A has had a great year. Below are some highlights we would like to share with you.

In early 2016 we launched the 2016 update of the R2A text, Engineering Due Diligence, at our annual function. This included Richard’s discussion of one of the first prosecutions of an officer of a company under the newly implemented Work Health and Safety legislation.

Shortly after this R2A took on a new business partner, Tim Procter, who returned to R2A after a number of years working in engineering design and consulting. Tim also joined the Engineers Australia College of Leadership and Management Victorian Committee.

And, not to be outdone, in mid 2016 Gaye welcomed the arrival of her second daughter.

Richard, Gaye and Tim are now looking forward to R2A’s next event. On 7 February 2017 R2A and the Victorian Bar will welcome former British MP Professor David Howarth, Reader in Law at Cambridge University, to Engineers Australia’s Melbourne centre. David will discuss his recent book, Law as Engineering, and his thoughts on some interfaces between lawyers and engineers. This will be a larger event than we have previously held – registrations are available through Engineers Australia’s events website. We’re planning that this be the first in a series of seminars exploring this subject. We’d love to see you there.

Interesting Projects

• Transurban: R2A completed a review of all fire safety systems for Transurban’s Australian tunnel portfolio, with a particular focus on what constitutes recognised good practice for aging assets.
• Public Transport Victoria: R2A conducted project due diligence reviews for a number of PTV business cases involving trams, trains, buses, safety and accessibility projects.
• IPART: R2A provided advice to IPART, the NSW electricity safety regulator, on the development of an audit framework for electricity network safety management systems. This was an extensive project that involved reconciling a number of concurrent pieces of legislation to ensure the framework was acceptable to all stakeholders.
• Legal advisory services: R2A advised our clients and their legal counsel in a number of confidential projects relating to the implications of the new WHS legislation for their operations and management.
• Department of Land, Water and Planning: R2A advised DELWP on the implications of the new WHS legislation when considered against the revised Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) guidelines.
• Port of Melbourne Corporations: R2A are undertaking an asset safety due diligence review for a critical piece of Port infrastructure.

Gaye has also been appointed to the Energy Safe Victoria Powerline Bushfire Safety Committee, which will continue its work in 2017.

Conferences

Richard and Tim presented at a number of conferences and seminars in 2016, and are available for similar opportunities in 2017. Please get in touch if you have an event coming up.

• Conference on Railway Excellent (CORE) 2016. Rail Tunnel Fire Safety System Design in a SFAIRP Context. Co-authored by Tim Procter and Lachlan Henderson of Metro Trains Melbourne.
• Asset Management Council and Risk Engineering Society (Melbourne). Risk and Asset Management.
• Dust Explosions Conference, 2016. Dust Explosions and the (Model) WHS Act.

Media

R2A were featured in a number of publications in 2016. The Sourceable articles in particular (listed here chronologically) show our evolving thinking on the implications of the precautionary approach in engineering decision-making and the wider society. This culminated in our final article for the year, which presents our view of the history and philosophy of the ISO/AS31000 (hazard-based) and WHS/common law (precaution-based) approaches to risk management, and the conflicts that have arisen between them.

• Are Australian Standards Becoming Irrelevant? (Sourceable) (No longer available).
• Precaution v Precaution (Sourceable)
• Unknown Knowns: the Perils of Blind Spots (Sourceable)
• Problems and Solutions: The Power of Perspective (Sourceable)
• Legal vs Engineered Due Diligence (Sourceable)
• Everyone is Entitled to Protection – But not Always the Same Level of Risk (Sourceable)

Tim also had a paper published in the 2016 edition of the peer reviewed Australian Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Engineering: Due diligence in the operation and maintenance of heritage assets.

Education

Throughout 2016 Richard delivered public and in-house courses on Engineering Due Diligence to a wide range of attendees.

Richard also continued to present the Swinburne University post-graduate unit Introduction to Risk & Due Diligence. In 2016 this was made a core unit for all engineering post-graduate degrees. Gaye, Tim and R2A associates presented guest lectures during the semester. With this increased enrolment Tim and Gaye will be joining Richard as regular lecturers in 2017.

The 2-day joint R2A/EEA Engineering Due Diligence workshop was again successful this year and will continue in 2017. This workshop is aimed at aspiring directors and senior managers.