Risk Management In Engineering Case Study 49006

Introduction:

Engineers have an important role in society. They are responsible for designing, building or creating something based on a specification or guideline to meet a need. What they develop must function without any failure for its intended lifetime, especially a catastrophic failure that can result in loss of life and damage to property and environment.

Engineering is about managing risks. It is technically impossible to remove risk altogether and lowering risk commonly involves a substantial cost. Engineering as a profession progresses through both its successes and its failures. As a profession, we need to learn from failures. By analysing failures, engineers can learn what not to do, and how to reduce the chance of failure. This may seem paradoxical but is widely accepted. Failure often can spur on innovation.

In engineering, it is important to review failures, and mistakes. It is harder to learn from success, but you should always learn from failures. This is not the best practice in some engineering projects where the failure results in human and property damage; however, when a failure occurs it is very important to analyse it and learn from it. Failures have elements in common. The lessons that we learn from them can help to predict and avoid failures. A skill that all professional engineers need is the ability to predict and avoid failures no matter what their scale or magnitude, from small or localised to large or widespread. Engineering failures are typically the result of:

• Human factors – both ‘ethical’ and accidental failure.
• Design flaws – typically a result of unprofessional or unethical behaviour.
• Material failures.
• Extreme conditions.

Assessment Task 1 – Topic and Case Study Analysis

Engineering failures can be categorised based on the size of the impacted region, and the level of impact on the region.

Size of impact:

• Localised: Thistype of failure will only have an impact on the immediate area where the incident occurs.

Level of impact:

• Small: Minor injuries and property damage, may not result in loss of life;
• Medium: Some loss of life, multiple serious injuries, or serious property damage;
• Large: Catastrophic failure, with extensive loss of life, and severe irreparable property damage.

By analysing past failures, engineers can prevent future failures, both minor and catastrophic. It is often the catastrophic failure that receives professional and public attention, but as you will discover, catastrophic failures are comprised of multiple smaller errors in design, communication and/or judgement. Engineering is a constantly evolving discipline due to both advances in technology and the integration of lessons learnt through failures into laws, standards, work practices and technology.

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