Institution news
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers organises an annual seminar for engineers to discuss the technical, legal and regulatory challenges and share strategies to overcome them.
Ahead of this year’s seminar, we caught up with Dominic Furniss, Senior Human Factors Consultant at Human Reliability Associates to get an advance preview of what attendees can expect to hear during his presentation and what he thinks are the key challenges facing ALARP practitioners from a regulatory perspective.
Q: Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to safety and risk management
Dominic Furniss (DF): I’m a Human Factors trainer and consultant working at Human Reliability. I’ve been working here for about 4 years, developing the Human Reliability Academy. We predominantly work with oil, gas and chemical companies who need to comply with COMAH, but we also work with other safety critical industries internationally. After my PhD I did Human Factors research in healthcare for some time.
Q: What is the top challenge facing engineers and risk managers when applying and demonstrating ALARP?
DF: People who do our training have a good grasp of the technical elements of their safety work but they’re less familiar with the human element. I hear people who say Human Factors could include anything under the sun, I hear people that are fed up with developing more procedures and suggesting training to improve performance, and people who are overwhelmed with the potential for the topic. It's great to then give people a structured and practical approach for identifying and reducing risks to do with Human Factors.
Q: How has your approach to risk management changed in recent years?
DF: We help organisations with their Human Factors risk management. Since Covid we have moved a lot of our Human Factors workshops online but have still done physical walkthroughs of tasks where possible. We have also developed online courses which enable others to use our tools and methods more.
Q: What developments are going on in your industry which will change your approach in the future?
DF: We’re seeing a lot of development in online course delivery which will affect how we support sites with Human Factors risk management. This could include online coaching and community, hybrid courses that have novel interactive elements and membership models so support can be provided over longer periods of time.
Q: What will you be presenting at the ALARP 2022 seminar and how will this benefit participants?
DF: I’ll be presenting on a methodology called Human Factors Safety Critical Task Analysis (SCTA). This is a practical approach for analysing and de-risking critical tasks from a Human Factors perspective. We will get an insight into how to do task analysis and bridge between work-as-imagined and work-as-done, how to identify different failures, and the factors that make these failures more or less likely.
Q: Which other speakers and presentations are you looking forward to hearing at the forthcoming seminar?
DF: I’m looking forward to hearing what Ron McLeod and Steve Corner have to say on Human Factors and ALARP. I’ve done some work on automated systems in a research capacity, and welcome more discussion about how Human Factors assessments and findings are received by people who need to demonstrate ALARP. I’ve also got one of Ron’s books on my bookshelf, so it’ll be great to see him in person.
Q: Why is it important for engineers and safety practitioners to come together and share best practice?
DF: For me it’s about breaking down those silos, hearing different perspectives, different thinking, and different ways of putting things – being constructive, building on what we already know and having a growth mindset.
The ALARP 2022 seminar will be taking place on 26 October in Manchester, UK.
Join this in-person seminar to:
- Gain in-depth insights into ALARP methodologies employed in a range of safety-critical sectors – allowing the transfer of best practice
- Understand developments around the interpretation and application of ALARP
- Develop the knowledge and skills needed to successfully apply the ALARP principle to 21st century engineering challenges
- Mitigate and manage risks effectively to eliminate safety-critical events
- Reduce your exposure to regulatory and legal penalties by understanding expectations and meeting them fully
To book your place, please visit the event website.