Our resources
The resources on this page are part of Safer Complex Systems, one of the five live programmes currently running as part of Engineering X. Further reports from Engineering X are available in the publications section.
Videos
Other reports
Safer Complex Systems workshop 2020
Report summary
- Published: Sep 2020
- Authors: SCS Advisory Board Professor Roger Kemp MBE FREng
The workshop, held on 25 September 2020, brought together (virtually) 131 participants from 20 different countries across six continents. In early sessions, two recent reports produced by the programme were discussed: Safer Complex Systems - An Initial Framework (see below) written by a team from the University of York in September 2020; and Exploring the safety of super-sized structures (see below), which summarised the conclusions of a specialist workshop held in May 2020. Later sessions discussed challenges in managing the safety of complex systems – particularly those that evolve unplanned as ‘systems of systems’ with no overall management structure.
Key findings
Participants considered that the University of York report was a very useful way of analysing complex systems. However, it had been evaluated on only a limited subset of complex systems. There was a consensus that the framework should continue to be developed and used on complex systems in a wide variety of sectors. In addition to further development and validation of the University of York framework, the following six areas of work were considered important:
- key Definitions – a lexicon of safety
- Acceptable levels of safety
- Regulating the safety of complex systems
- Support for well-structured case studies
- Education
- Diversity and inclusion
Exploring the safety of super-sized structures
Report summary
- Published: May 2020
- Authors: University College London and BRE (Building Research Establishment)
Engineering X partnered with University College London and BRE (Building Research Establishment) to deliver an Exploring the safety of super-sized structures workshop on 11 May 2020, which looked in detail at whether the size of structures across a different set of domains had some generic features that needed exploring with respect to safety engineering. The workshop brought together 30 experts to report on five theme groupings, which were representative of the safety issues around super-sized structures: industrial complexes and processes (manufacturing and process industries); geotechnical structures (dams, tunnels, bridges); engineered moving structures (aircraft, ships); offshore structures (oil platforms, wind farms); and high-occupancy buildings (residential and commercial). In each of these theme groupings, attendees explored the following generic and cross-cutting challenges: competency, engineering, socio-technical issues, economic factors, and regulatory and governance.
Key findings
From the discussions described above, the following three key recommendations were formed:
- Outcomes-based regulation: placing responsibility with the owner/risk creators is most effective, but we must recognise that with complexity comes the significant challenge in identifying a single point of responsibility and maintaining a clear sightline of accountability.
- Competency: the Engineering Council and the professional engineering institutions need to consider competencies required of registrants for CEng. They need to be fit for contemporary purpose, including the practical considerations around cross-disciplinary working, systems-thinking and a sound appreciation of ethics in engineering practice so that professionals deliver work with honesty and commitment.
- Research: understanding low occurrence, high consequence ‘Black Swan’ events that impose risks on engineered structures, particularly high-occupancy buildings and geotechnical and bridge constructions. We need to understand how to quantify and articulate this for people deciding budgets so that the correct safety engineering can be built in.
Safer Complex workshop 2019
About the workshop
On 19 July 2019, the Academy brought together 43 experts from a broad range of profession categories, including academia, industry, nonprofit, research consultancy, government and regulation. The purpose of the workshop was to:
- Inform the Safer Complex Systems mission scope and strategy
- Input into the Invitation to Tender (ITT) for a Global Review on the Safety of Complex Systems
- Begin to build a diverse community interested in improving the safety of complex systems
Closing remarks
Delivered by Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng
Dame Judith noted that the Board were delighted at the quality of the discussion at the workshop and thanked delegates for their valuable contributions. Dame Judith delivered the following summary:
- We are operating in a world that is becoming more disaggregated and more polarised, which contrasts to our aims of integration and distributed systems. Are these things compatible?
- Systems thinking and engineering have demonstrated operational weakness as they are not keeping pace with the complex, organic and evolutionary nature of the systems themselves. The world is changing faster than we are able to keep pace, which raises the question of how are we going to keep up? Chase or get in front? Managing systems at Level 1 vs. Level 2 or beyond
- There is an urgent need to develop a new language to enable communication and collaboration between a broad range of stakeholders
- How do you change expectations and shift culture? How do we get to a place where all sectors and organisations learn from mistakes rather than look for people to blame (e.g. aviation sector) because a blame culture immediately stifles the ability to learn and improve for the future
- There has been a richness brought about by having bought such a diverse group of people together. There is a need to bring together the complex systems community and the sociological aspect of systems, and the Board and Secretariat need to think about this carefully
- Education is important at all levels, including educating some engineers about the concepts of systems thinking
- Whose role is it to manage the overall systems? Do we over rely on the leaders to make decisions and to be the integrators of systems? Should there be more collective responsibility for this?
- There have been lots of suggestions of places internationally to look for good practice (for example, China, Finland and India) as well as specific sectors (for example, aviation, nuclear, shipping and defence). The strongest message has been that there is no such thing as best practice, only good practice, as everything is context dependent
- There is a need for better-quality, purpose-driven and collective decision-making
- What it is we are trying to achieve with a system? This all depends on what people perceive to be the critical thing about the system and unless people have a common view they won’t see the same things as being important within a system
- Championing systems thinking into schools. Current concepts of systems thinking talk about putting a boundary around something that we're not sure can be bound
- There is a need to develop strategic communications to make messages non-technical and more understandable. We need to make messages resonate with broader audiences by doing some thinking around the social and cultural dimensions of language, rather than it all being technical
- Questions for the programme board include what is our role in all of this? Is it really safety we are looking into, or is it resilience or something else? We need a vision of where we are trying to get to
The Academy captured additional notes on each discussion; this information will be synthesised and will input into the development of the Safer Complex Systems mission.
Articles
The following articles have been written by members of the Safer Complex Systems community:
- 'Getting to grips with complex systems' written by Professor Brian Collins CB FREng and published by The Engineer
- 'Cambridge engineers to tackle Australian infrastructure system resilience in Engineering X-funded project' written and published by the University of Cambridge
- 'Engineering X outlines strategy for the profession to lead on safety in complex systems' written by Adam Duckett and published by The Chemical Engineer