ENGINEERING TECH
Article | August 24, 2021
Infrastructure Australia outlines new guidance on how to improve infrastructure resilience
Infrastructure Australia has released a new set of resilience guidelines for infrastructure, noting that the events of recent years have brought Australia’s vulnerability to threats such as bushfires, droughts, floods, pandemics and cyber-attacks into sharp focus.
The Advisory Papers, developed in partnership with Infrastructure New South Wales, estimate that, by 2050, the economic cost of natural disasters in Australia will more than double from about AU$18 billion annually to AU$39 billion.
Infrastructure Australia wants infrastructure resilience in project planning and business cases “to become business as usual”. The organisation is required to evaluate business cases for infrastructure projects that receive more than AU$250 million in funding from the federal government and has indicated it may reject proposals that do not effectively incorporate infrastructure resilience.
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Article | August 24, 2021
Creating homes and structures from scratch is a rewarding career path for many. However, working in construction has unique risks and stressors. Exposure to harmful chemicals, constant loud noise, handling heavy loads, and potential hazards such as falling from a high place or electric shocks are among the daily risks for millions who work on construction sites. Hence, construction is the sector with one of the highest rates of fatal workplace accidents, according to the International Labor Organization. The organization estimates that 2.3 million workers around the world lose their lives to work-related accidents and illnesses every year.
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Article | August 24, 2021
Collaboration – whether it happens in-person or in a digital space – is crucial in construction. While the contributions of individual team members matter, projects are only successful when team members and stakeholders can come together to solve problems and coordinate work. A heightened and immediate pressure has emerged for construction teams to collaborate remotely and virtually. But considering that some contractors are new to the concept of virtual collaboration, how should they set their teams up for success?
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ENGINEERING TECH
Article | August 24, 2021
In amongst the chatter about how we can 'do' infrastructure better, there's now a growing consensus that we need to improve the way we design our interventions - 'design' in the broader sense of the word, rather than the narrow sense we tend to use as engineers.
My front-end principles for better infrastructure
Over the course of my career, the following front-end principles have served well to ensure we think through, before we rush in where angels fear to tread.
Be clear about the purpose and the expected outcomes, and engage communities in decision-making through an effective communication strategy.
Prioritise the user, aiming to offer services that are modern, effective and affordable.
Seek to improve people's quality of life and support the transition to a more sustainable future, while also facilitating the functioning of the economy, enhancing productivity and accommodating growth (to the extent possible, given other competing objectives).
Extract greatest value from existing infrastructure through timely maintenance, repurposing, renewal and upgrading. Seek to remove constraints and bottlenecks.
Aim to make best use of data, automation, innovation and technology (including for future asset management), recognising the complexity and risks this may introduce.
Recognise, analyse, mitigate and manage technical, environmental and climate risks, and complete any surveys necessary to support this.
Improve governance, with robust, timely and transparent decision-making, supported by strong evidence-based planning, clear prioritisation, and best practice technical design and delivery.
Seek an appropriate funding balance between 'user pays' and general taxation which incentivises behaviours in the best long-term social, economic and environmental interests.
Complete well-evidenced business cases and risk assessments of proposed initiatives before embarking on projects, including financing proposals. Aim to allocate the risks identified to those best able to carry them.
Facilitate collaboration between the government and business to promote delivery of the broader social, economic and environmental benefits.
Clearly, there are many other issues to consider as a project develops, and the above principles may seem obvious to some, and a counsel of perfection to others, but it's surprising how many are overlooked in the rush to build.
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