Safety strategies
of suggestions for consideration about the future of how we should construct the built environment in the UK.
Layered approach
It’s important to note that fire safety is just one part of a complex construction system. Fire safety is achieved through the provision of multiple layers of safety and this ‘layered approach’ or ‘defence in depth’ is the underlying principle of many safety frameworks, not just fi re safety. Failure of one layer shouldn’t cause failure of the whole system, ie there should be no single point of failure. However, what happens if some of those
layers aren’t there in the first place, either because they have been designed out as part of so called ‘value engineering’, or due to ‘they were not on the last job’ syndrome? What if they weren’t properly installed or don’t operate as they should? What if the people and companies tasked with maintaining the fi re safety system don’t properly understand how they work or properly maintain them? Have the layers of fi re safety, upon which
we have historically relied, been gradually eroded over recent years? If we look at recent events, it certainly feels that way and it is clear that this has become a disjointed journey.
Disrupting factors
At every step of what is a well recognised design and construction process, there have become too many moments where we face disruptors. From a fire safety perspective, disruptors are things that have the potential to alter the standard of compliance. And this happens in all stages of a project’s lifecycle. For example, in the design stage, we have
observed serious problems being introduced to the standard of compliance through designers not checking or not understanding the performance of the products and materials they are specifying. In practice, designers require such a detailed level of knowledge and understanding of what is a highly complex testing regime that it can be diffi cult to interpret information in product data sheets, test certifi cates or test reports as they are currently being provided to designers. Or worse still, this level of detail simply isn’t
made available to designers by the suppliers of those products and materials in the fi rst place.
Design stage
The design stage should be the part of the project where, as a team, the detailed thinking and decision making happens. At the end of this stage, drawings and specifi cations need
FOCUS
Use
Handover
Design
Construction
Specification
www.frmjournal.com OCTOBER 2018
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