How organisational silos impact due diligence across safety, projects and compliance

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis tackle the growing problem of organisational silos and their impact on due diligence and explore how siloed thinking undermines efforts across various domains—from safety, projects and regulatory compliance.

Drawing from decades of industry experience, Richard traces the evolution of risk engineering. They then discuss the need for integrating expertise across the entire organisation to achieve genuinely diligent solutions that satisfy all stakeholders.

Through real-world examples including waterfront safety designs in New Zealand and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, they demonstrate how breaking down silos leads to better outcomes. 

They also emphasise that while the R2A due diligence process isn't "rocket science," it requires structured thinking and inclusive facilitation to bring disparate perspectives together.

This episode refers to their previous discussion about being "relevant, reasoned and concise" (S5 Ep7), offering practical insights on how organisations can overcome the silo mentality to demonstrate due diligence across all operations.

For further information on Richard and Gaye’s consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye is also founder of women’s safety workwear company Apto PPE if you’d like to check out the garments at https://www.aptoppe.com.au

Transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss silos, the due diligence difficulties and how they deal with siloed competing interests.

(00:17):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please give us a rating and subscribe on your favourite podcast platform. If you'd like more information on R2A's work or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:35):

Hi Richard.

Richard Robinson (00:37):

Hello Gaye. Back again.

Gaye Francis (00:38):

We are back again. Today we're going to talk about silos and the difficulty that we've seen with silos over the last little while.

Richard Robinson (00:49):

And how we deal with silos.

Gaye Francis (00:50):

And how we deal with silos. I think they've been separating out more recently into different categories, and I guess that it's very difficult to come to a due diligence solution or answer when everybody's doing things in silos.

Richard Robinson (01:09):

I think that's correct, and I think that's one of the reasons why on our last podcast (S5 Ep7) we were talking about that we need to be relevant, reasoned and concise. But when you're split into silos, everybody tries to make a justifed course of action from their own silo, you suddenly have all these competing interests and whatever you get when you consolidate it is usually a mess and rather scrappy.

Gaye Francis (01:31):

And I guess we can just say that we've seen this in a whole lot of applications. It's not just in safety, it's in projects, it's in SIL ratings, it's in a whole lot of things.

Richard Robinson (01:40):

Well, again it flows on from some of the other discussions we've had about the way in which the history of these things actually was created. I mean, now I'm actually going past and talking about how long I've been in this business, but the Risk Engineering Society of Engineers Australia originally started as the loss control section of the management branch of the Victorian division of Engineers Australia by a whole bunch of ex Factory Mutual engineers, of which I was one of them. Factory Mutual's based in Melbourne, that's why there was a collection of them in this location. Right.

(02:10):

Actually, it was actually rather close actually, the vote, because I do remember the vote as to whether or not it should be part of Engineers Australia because there's actually an argument to say that it shouldn't be. And as I said, it started as the loss control section, which in a sense was perhaps more allied to the insurance industry than to engineers per se. But then one of my former business partners, Derek Viner, dreamed up the idea of calling the risk engineers following on from Factory Mutual HPR, highly protected risk engineering, as a concept. And that was something that just flashed around the planet in a most extraordinary speed. Everybody became risk engineers all over the planet. It was something that I was completely astonished about. But anyway, that's what sort of happened.

(02:51):

But anyway, time went on and then rather than risk being a generic thing, which is what we were trying to do and from a Common Law viewpoint and from the point of view of what we then just thought was where the WHS legislation was going; this overarching thing dealing with the subject of risk. You might recall, we tried to convince the Risk Engineering Society to change its name to the Due Diligence Society, which hasn't been a success.

Gaye Francis (03:15):

No, we were unsuccessful in that attempt.

Richard Robinson (03:19):

But then the Fire Engineering Society of Engineers Australia appeared and it sort of hired off that part of what we had considered to be an integrated aspect of risk to somewhere else. It certainly confused perhaps some Factory Mutual type HPR engineers because fires and explosions is what Factory Mutual was focused on. I mean, the whole point of BLEVE is Boiling Liquid Expanding Vaporcloud Explosions, that was the term dreamed up by Factory Mutual researchers in the 1950s & 1960s I recall, because that's what I got fed in the 1970s, the late seventies. So yes, I have been around for a long time.

(03:53):

What got us completely stumped and this subdivision into silos of activity that's been preceding at pace because just think of Registration of Engineers and the fire engineers that are in their own little group. And yet as we've sort of been explaining, if you just look at that in isolation, you get completely confused. And Frank Stocks, our New Zealand associate, he's just been doing expert witness matter for some fellow who went over the edge at one of the harbors and drowned. And he'd been giving advice to various councils on this sort of thing. He's an architect actually, but he has a PhD in accepted crime prevention through environmental design. And his point has been, and that's where he's just been given this expert witness stuff and the coroner New Zealand and the provisions of the WSHA in their case apply, that to do and just make a decision on a silo, it doesn't make sense. You've got to have all the parties there.

(04:44):

For example, one of the things that Kiwis (NZ) really do like is their waterfronts and it's part of their social environment, and they don't want to have great fences areas stopping people falling over the edge. And yet obviously there's a danger there, particularly with kids. And Frank was sort of saying, well, what you've got to do is get all the relevant experts together, the people who want to make sure the access is maintained to the waterfront and so forth. So, where there's a bar, you can have a glass wall there with a glass top on it, proper plain glass, so it's not going to shatter and so people can have a drink and look at the water and admire things, and in another place you might do other treatments. And yes, the risk levels might change in one way, but what you need is an integrated solution that satisfies all the competing interests in a way that demonstrates due diligence and you won't be getting a constant level of risk all over the place because that's just not the nature of the thing. But you will have demonstrated due diligence all over the place, which is what the purpose is.

Gaye Francis (05:35):

But you won't get that solution if you keep thinking about it in silos.

Richard Robinson (05:39):

No. And using target levels of risk and safety, for example, you will be completely confused.

Gaye Francis (05:44):

So the key is to get the due diligence argument, you really need to bring those silos together. And we've seen it a lot in projects as well. Often somebody's got an idea and management do it, but they haven't talked to necessarily the operations or the maintenance staff of how it's going to be done. And so things are promised and done in isolation without considering all of the key parties and then trying to bring it back together is quite difficult.

Richard Robinson (06:12):

Well, and that's actually what we wind up doing. If you sort say what's a due engineer do? Well, in a way, you're making sure that the silos get back together again. So the decision that's made and the way it's presented is diligent for the whole organisation and all the players, including anybody who's actually exposed to the risk itself. I mean, one of the reasons why we're not RPEQ or RPV, the registrant being a registered engineer in Queensland or Victoria, is because what we do does not require it. We've talked about this a number of cases like RPEQ. And it's like the example we gave of the one our previous recently was about the fire engineers and things like that. We're setting up the argument of the WHS legislation as to why something needs to be done. And then that design is implemented and signed off by the relevant design engineer.

Gaye Francis (07:00):

With the support of all of the key stakeholders and all of the different silos.

Richard Robinson (07:04):

Which means the fire engineers are grateful for the answer, but there's no point in us being registered because what are we, there's no such registration for due diligence engineers.

Gaye Francis (07:14):

No, no. Well, we always said that a large part of our job is that facilitation process and communication process and bringing due process to things so that those arguments can be had in a constructive manner.

Richard Robinson (07:30):

And the way we do it, I mean, I guess it sort of puzzles me. It's not as though we do anything, which is astounding in the sense of the process. You go and talk to all the other parties, pick the core ideas, put it together in sort of some simplified form, and then run a workshop and test it with everybody. This is not rocket science.

Gaye Francis (07:49):

It's not rocket science, but you have to have a considered way of thinking about things and a structured process to go through.

Richard Robinson (07:57):

I tell a lie there. actually. The reason why one of the space shuttle blew up was because the O-rings got wrong. And if they'd actually done what we'd said... The problem was they had two O-rings, but they'd never launched when it was cold, and they didn't really know how the O-rings would perform. And the only reason why they had to have the O-rings is because they had to spread the manufacturing out across America, and if they'd manufactured it close to where the rockets were, they would've manufactured a single integrated without the need to join the bits together and have the O-rings. So not only did they fail to eliminate the hazard, they also then said, we've never had an O-ring fail. We've got two, so we've got backup. But the engineers were saying, you've never launched when it was this cold (and) we don't know what the performance of the O-rings will be in that condition. So yes, due diligence would've addressed it, and to very great extent the Americans set themselves up for the fall by the silos that they'd been creating.

Gaye Francis (08:53):

I also think you just set up potentially another podcast about quality assurance and the ability to test challenge and question.

Richard Robinson (09:02):

Yeah, probably.

Gaye Francis (09:05):

Just going back to that silo thing, we have seen a lot of organisations break out into silos and try and solve the issue of concern within those silos.

Richard Robinson (09:17):

But the reason why it drives this crackers, it's a bit like the safety function, break it out and putting a safety specialist over there and not recognise that risk management's a line management function, it just sets you up for a fall.

Gaye Francis (09:27):

Yeah, well, it should almost be all business as usual stuff, isn't it integrated into the whole of business. But what we say is that the due diligence process and demonstrating SFAIRP does get you over that silo and people having their own views on things in their own silos - it (all) has to be integrated.

Richard Robinson (09:47):

Yep.

Gaye Francis (09:49):

So we hope you found that interesting. Thank you for joining us today, Richard, and we will see you next time.

Richard Robinson (09:54):

Thanks, Gaye.