Risk Management of Engineering Failures – the Human Factors in Prevention

A key aspect in reducing the incidence of engineering failure is to ensure that the lessons learned from previous failures are understood by the engineering, management and legal professions. Effective risk allocation and risk management should contemplate such failures.

While many of these failures may be caused by “technical” factors, it is generally “human” factors, such as human error and procedural issues, which play an instrumental role in allowing technical factors to culminate in catastrophic failure.

This presentation examines the role played by human factors in a number of recent failures, such as the Malahide Viaduct in 2009 and the De Grolsch Veste stadium failure in the Netherlands in 2011. Human factors are an issue for all forms of engineering endeavour, from NASA's Challenger and Columbia disasters to Toyota's recall of over 6 million vehicles due to accelerator issues.

The presenter is Dr Sean Brady, managing director of Brady Heywood Pty Ltd. Dr Brady is a forensic structural engineer specialising in identifying the cause of structural engineering failures, defects, and unsatisfactory performance in steel and concrete structures. He has provided forensic services to a wide range of international and national clients and a number of state government infrastructure departments. He is an experienced investigator, with a special interest in the application of forensic engineering to the legal process, focusing on the clear and independent communication of investigation findings to a non-technical audience.

There will also be a separate legal commentary on the presentation.