Archives

Of Human and Dams Health

Someone asked us to do a ELI5 tailings dam failure (i.e. Explain me Like I am 5, aka explain in layman’s term what are the problem in the management of dams). We find the similarities on common traits of Human and Dams Health particularly striking and hope it helps people to understand the missing pieces. Human Health Human health is a complex field. Numerous factors (Key performance Indicators) may generate diseases which provoke failure modes, such as: Heart issues Lungs…

Read More

Anticipating Objections to risk assessments

Anticipating Objections to risk assessments is paramount to foster social licence to operate (SLO) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The first step is to avoid any suspicion of conflict of interest. Indeed, risk assessments should be performed by an independent entity (Brehaut, 2017, UNEP). That is to avoid conflict of interest (Oboni, Zabolotoniuk, 2013) and assuage public concerns. Nevertheless, the proponent of a project might feel vulnerable if that information becomes public. Thus, today we discuss how to help remove…

Read More

Can we learn from our failures?

Today we explore under which conditions can we learn from our failures? In our society we oftentimes say that we benefit from failure, mostly in terms of lesson learned, allowing for better future decisions. System are continuously exposed to failure As Johnny Cash  stated : “You build on failure. You use it as a steppingstone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any…

Read More

Success and failure criteria in mining risk assessment

The numerous comments made in the aftermath of the Cadia goldmine accident offer the opportunity to discuss Success and failure criteria in mining risk assessment. Cadia goldmine accident comments Several comments congratulated the mine for their overall tailings management, for the limited volumes involved, for the limited breach of the dam. They came from highly experienced dam engineers and mining people. The media, however, focused on the business interruption. Some were not as enthusiastic about the overall performance and stressed…

Read More

Lean enterprises win

Lean enterprises win. A bit more than a century ago the Norwegians conquered the South Pole while well funded and well resourced British “competitors” in the race to Antarctica all died on the way back. Lean enterprises win The Norwegian expedition leader was Roald Amundsen. He trained with the Inuit in Canada during an epic prior expedition to the North West passage. Robert Scott led the British team and showed up at the South Pole 34 days later than Amundsen…

Read More

Comments on the Ponemon survey The Imperative to Raise Enterprise Risk Intelligence

We could not resist to publish some comments on the Ponemon survey The Imperative to Raise Enterprise Risk Intelligence.” The survey shows, as expected, that reputation and cyber risk concerns remain central. Meanwhile progress in abolishing silos between legal, IT and finance is slow. This pairs up with 50% of polled organizations lacking a formal budget for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). As a result the survey delivers a fairly dull and inefficient landscape. Ponemon adeptly differentiate Enterprise Risk Intelligence (ERI),…

Read More

Optimum Risk Estimates, ORE

Optimum Risk Estimates, ORE ORE starts by asking its users to model the systems using a «fractal like» tile modelling tool (we call them jokingly “risk-engineering Lego”) which helps defining external and internal hazards and focuses the user attention to the interdependent performances of each node. ORE value proposition can be summarized as a quantified FMEA with the systematicity of a HAZOP, without the necessity to delve into the smallest components, at first, as ORE analysis/hazard identification is SCALABLE. Within…

Read More

Archive

Hosted and powered by WR London.