Risk and Liability Management

This two-day course presents how current and emerging risk and reliability tools and techniques can be used to achieve engineering due diligence for organisations and projects. It is based on the very sensible ethical position of the common law, namely, that all reasonable practical precautions are in place based on the balance of the significance of the risk verses the effort required to achieve it.

The first day focuses on risk philosophies including the ideas and implications of the Rudd Government’s model Work Health and Safety Bill. The second day provides an overview of risk and liability management techniques and explains the strengths and weaknesses of them and when each is most appropriate to use.

Recognised for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) by Engineers Australia (EA) in accordance with EA CPD Guidelines.

Target Audience

For risk advisers in major engineering organisations, regulators, lawyers, general managers, responsible project managers and those who wish to improve current approaches to risk management.

Course Outline

Taxpayers and shareholders expect critical assets to work reliably and safely. Boards, Government Ministers and CEOs need to ensure that the precautions put in place to manage threatening, critical issues are effective and appropriate. The reasoning to achieve this outcome should be transparently documented in a way acceptable to shareholders, taxpayers, regulators and the courts, if required.

This was never easy in a complex, technological society like Australia. But in a global recession errors in technological judgment can easily be fatally amplified. In order to address such concerns, engineering due diligence is required.

The course is based on experience although the theoretical basis of the ideas is documented in the provided text, currently in use at 5 Australian universities.  The course covers the first two parts of the R2A Text (7th edition, revised).

Day 1 focuses on risk philosophies including the ideas and implications of the Rudd Government’s model Work Health & Safety Bill.  Sessions include; a brief history of risk, current risk management paradigms, common risk models, liability and risk criteria.

Day 2 deals with risk management techniques including top down vulnerability techniques, ranking techniques, modelling techniques, generative techniques, bottom techniques quantified techniques.  

This course provides an overview of risk philosophy, existing and emerging risk management techniques, key tools and techniques to identify, manage and minimise technical risk. It explains the strengths and weaknesses of each technique and when the use of each is appropriate.

Risk & Reliability Concepts

Insurance risk versus speculative risk philosophies; business risk verses safety risk; historical perspective; relationship of risk to reliability and quality.

Risk Management Paradigms & Safety Cases

Asset management approaches like HazOp and RCM; threat based SWOT or vulnerability assessments; market based risk as variance approaches; best practice versus hazard based risk management; computer simulated neo-Darwinism; risk culture approaches.

Legal Liability

Common law principles & due diligence; inquisitorial versus adversarial legal systems; human law versus laws of nature; adversarial legal system contradictions; the consequence driven nature of the courts.

Causation

A view of the future of risk: minimalist legal human error approaches; time & energy sequence approaches; culture/hazard versus vulnerability versus pathogen based; rise of the risk society in a context of globalisation.

Risk Criteria

Use of probabilistic criteria in Australian jurisdictions; societal risk criteria; environmental criteria; insurance criteria; ethical criteria.

Top Down Techniques

SWOT assessments vs threat and vulnerability assessments; risk characterisation systems & ISO 31000; risk profiling processes & residual risk allocation; use & limits of risk audit systems; enterprise vs project risk profiling; risk ranking registers; acute OHS hazards; property underwriting; integrated risk based investment approaches.

Bottom Up Techniques

Technical risk assessment techniques HazOps; FMEA, FMECA and RCM; QRA; HACCP; different approaches.

Modelling Techniques

Reliability block diagrams; causeconsequence modelling (fault & event trees); threat barrier diagrams; risk based availability modelling; human reliability analysis.

Generative Techniques

Generative interview techniques; generative solution techniques; independent rapid risk reporting techniques.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course participants will be able to:

• Gain an appreciation of what constitutes common (case) law due diligence
• Understand why target levels of risk or safety and supporting Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) cannot survive post event common law scrutiny in Australia
• Explain how to show fiduciary responsibility for technology, especially in essential service organisations
• Understand criticality, risk and reliability concepts in a common law context
• Appreciate the different risk management organisational ‘sign-off’ paradigms
• Apply top down risk management techniques to organisational and project risk issues
• Understand the strengths and limitations of bottom up techniques like Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and Hazard and Operability Studies (HazOps)
• Apply a more comprehensive approach to risk management

Facilitator Information

Richard M Robinson BE BA FIEAust

Richard Robinson is a Director of R2A Due Diligence Engineers.  He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia. He has degrees in Engineering (Monash University) and Philosophy (University of Melbourne).  He is the principal author of Risk & Reliability – An Introductory Text (revised 7th edition 2008) being used for courses by 5 Australian universities in 2010.

Richard has been Chairman of: Engineers Media (Engineers Australia Pty Ltd) (2001-2004), RMIT Pilot Centre Course Advisory Committee (Point Cook), Victoria Division of Engineers Australia (1993) and RMIT MSE Course Advisory Committee.

Recent undertakings include the development of alternate airspace collision risk models for the Civil Aviation Authority, New Zealand and the Office of Airspace Regulation Australia; strategic risk reviews for the Marina Coastal Expressway, Singapore and Tugan Bypass on the Gold Coast; safety case pilotage studies for Cairns, Townsville, Melbourne, Tasports and others; and a large number of SIL (safety integrity level) allocation studies.

Registration

Please select your preferred location and date from the below table and then click on the REGISTER NOW button.

A 10% saving applies for Engineers Australia Members or for group bookings of 3 or more participants.