EEA R2A Due Diligence Workshop Wrap Up

As a new addition to the R2A Consulting team, the timing of the recent EEA (Engineering Education Australia) and R2A ‘Engineering Due Diligence’ workshop was such that I was able to attend in my first few weeks of my new role.

Richard Robinson presented the workshop with eight participants from various industries and locations in Australia, which provided for interesting and varied discussion.

The workshop was the first of its kind following the recent partnership between R2A and EEA. Previous workshops had been more structured and closely followed the framework of the R2A text (2013) Risk and Reliability: Engineering Due Diligence, whereas the focus of this workshop explored in greater depth the queries and views of the participants in attendance.

The topics that stimulated most discussion amongst the group were -

1. Risk paradigms as they relate to business, projects and safety
2. Implications of the model Work Health and Safety Act
3. Limitations of the risk management standard as a tool to manage critical vulnerabilities
4. Determining critical success factors and undertaking a vulnerability assessment
5. Establishing time sequence diagrams
6. Establishing threat-barrier diagrams and locating the legal loss of control point

Of interest also was the diverse range of legal and technical examples that Richard drew upon to support the points of discussion that demonstrate due diligence or not, the case may have been.

The workshop format worked well and the feedback from the group was overwhelmingly positive. And no R2A workshop would be complete without the entertainment of a good set of well delivered jokes!

R2A is set to conduct more due diligence workshops like this in 2014 which I think will be of great value to personnel of varied responsibility including but certainly not limited to company directors, senior executives and project managers.