Some questions which may get asked:

• How will this service add value to project?

In short for a relatively insignificant CAPEX investment can create safety and performance improvements over the life of the Operations. High Reliability Organisations (HROs) aim to optimise the design for long term benefits. NASA has a fairly regularly referenced position on HF.

• What changes/improvements could be made to the design in it’s current state without affect project delivery schedule?

Utilising us to support will not impact project schedule. We may identify improvements or design innovations which have the potential to impact project delivery. This then become a project decision, but it’s an active decision based on pros and cons of the potential change rather than not considering the change / innovation at all. The few examples we discussed during the meeting I don’t think any of those would impact schedule so they would be good examples.

• Why can’t you do this by yourself following standards and guidelines?

Same reasons you’re not doing the acoustic engineering or electrical installations. They all have standards but they also require and benefit from experts who take a systematic approach based on expertise and experience rather than feeling your way through a design or process.

• Have you investigated the Design budget for other projects as a proportion of total capital spend?

This is a tough one to answer as I often don’t see overall budget figures. I have chatted about this before with colleagues and personally I think it sits around the 0.1% for a fairly comprehensive HF project support.

One major rail project we’re working on is around 1 billion. Our fees up to date have been 6 years at around 250k each year but that’s only client side there is also a team on the design side so potentially double that which lands us at 0.003%

We’re generally just a drop in the ocean though which is why within high risk industries its become standard practise as it is generally accepted that the long term benefits far outweigh the CAPEX investment.

• What operational/safety benefits would engaging the consultant bring?

The NASA link provides a good summary of this. Operationally its focussed on human performance and reliability. This design of a work area (context of work) is the biggest predictor of human performance. HOP principle 3 “Context Drives Behaviour” – we specialise in optimising the work context to drive the desired decisions and behaviours of the operators. From a safety perspective its harder to say until we understand the risks associated with the plant, however our HFIRs (mentioned this in our chat) typically sit at around 75-78% usability and performance improvements and the rest have a safety implication which needs to resolved.