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BTS | HARDING MEMORIAL LECTURE


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS


Q: Dan Garbutt, Magnox Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Do you think there should be a role for behavioral psychologists on our project teams to help with cultural change? Mike King: I believe we do need an understanding of the way that humans operate and the influences on our decision making processes, so there is a role for psychology in our industry. It will make us more understanding about the mistakes that are made and avoid the stances of moral superiority, retribution and blame that we see too often. We need to concentrate on what has gone wrong and disseminate the information.


Q: Bob Ibell, London Bridge Associates (LBA): What impact do you think the introduction of the corporate manslaughter law has had on accident investigation? MK: This concentrates on punishment rather than technical resolution and avoidance in the future. We obviously cannot have a free-for-all without any justice, so it needs to be in place. A ‘Just Culture’ recognises honest mistakes while punishing negligence. Bob Ibell: It also changed (reduced) the approach to co-operation. MK: I agree, and we also lose the opportunity to learn something.


Q: Bill Grose, Independent Consultant: Even with a no-blame culture we still need to tackle ‘who pays’. How do we separate the contractual side from a no-blame investigation? MK: Part of the issue might be resolved through project insurance rather than individual insurance, but this is only part of it. The investigation will be undertaken by a range of specialists – technical, financial, contractual, legal – and the contract needs to reflect that this will be undertaken by acceptable neutral scrutineers and all parties will abide by their decisions rather than every party employing teams.


Q: David McCann, Jacobs: One of the most memorable things said to me was that unless you can visualize how something fails you will not understand how to design it. Do you feel that today we are too reliant on process and the tools we have and less reliant on an understanding of how structures work? MK: Yes, you have summarised many of my views. The visualisation of how something is going to break has always been my approach to design, and I’m not sure that the design tools in use today do that in the same way. They result in ‘it stands up or it doesn’t’ based upon the input parameters rather than testing various mechanisms of failure.


Q: Martin Knights, Independent Consulting Engineer and Chair of LBA: A few years ago, I wrote a paper called ‘Mind your signature’ which was about the loss of the controlling mind and accountability. The tendency today is to have checkers checking the checkers; do you think this mitigates the possibility of failure? MK: A simple answer, no it doesn’t. Despite all the checks – and people use the Swiss-Cheese model of going through every hole before a failure occurs – failures are still occurring, but obviously it helps. I don’t actually believe we always have checkers checking checkers, but I think we might have a problem of checkers sometimes being less experienced than the originators and therefore deferring to their experience when a more robust challenge is required.


REFERENCES


1. G.A Lance and Dr J. Anderson for the Health and Safety Executive (2006): Research Report 453 - The risk to third parties from bored tunnelling in soft ground


2. Health and Safety Executive (1996): Safety of New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) Tunnels. A review of sprayed concrete lined tunnels with particular reference to London Clay HSE Books.


3. Civil Engineering and Development Department (Hong Kong) – Catalogue of Notable Tunnel Failures: Case Histories (www.cedd.gov.hk)


4. T. Konstantis, S. Konstantis and P. Spyridis (2016): “Tunnel Losses: Causes, Impact, Trends and Risk Engineering Management). World Tunnelling Conference, San Francisco.


5. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ the-10-deadliest-construction-projects-in- the-world.html


6. https://knowinsiders.com/top-10-deadliest- construction-projects-in-the-world-32821. html


7. https://interestingengineering.com/ some-of-the-deadliest-construction- projects-in-history


8. https://www.rankred.com/deadliest- construction-projects-in-history/


9. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do- humans-make-inadvertent-mistakes-how- can-we-stop-john-wellwood/


10. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/ article/20151119-why-clever-people-make- more-stupid-mistakes-than-everyone-else


11. David Robson (2019). “The intelligence trap – Why smart people do stupid things and how to make wiser decisions”. Hodder & Stoughton.


12. Daniel Kahneman (2012). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. Farrer, Straus and Giroux, New York.


13. C Heath and D Heath (2007). “Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die”. Random House Publishing Group.


14. Developments in the tunnelling industry following introduction of the tunnelling code of practice. IMIA Annual conference, Amsterdam 2011. Hartmut Reiner (Munich Re)


15. https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/tables


52 | Winter 2023


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