Engineering Matters
Engineering Matters is an award-winning podcast that highlights the achievements of engineers and their role in building a better world. Each episode features interviews, analysis, and site visits that explore vital engineering work across sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and transportation. The show regularly covers topics such as sustainable power, connectivity, production efficiency, advanced manufacturing, and digital transformation. It aims to showcase the ingenuity, practicality, and determination behind engineering projects that impact everyday life.
Episodes
#378 Revisited: Designing Dinorwig – Inside Electric Mountain
In late 1973 the UK’s Central Electricity Generating Board gained parliamentary approval to build the largest and most difficult pumped storage hydroelectric power station in its history. It was the largest civil engineering contract ever awarded by the government and became the biggest construction project in Europe. Engineering teams had to burrow 750m deep into the Cambrian slate of Elidir Faw
#377 German Offshore Wind and the Mudflats of the Wadden Sea
Germany needs 70GW of offshore wind power connected to its grid by 2045, part of an estimated 300GW total capacity by 2050 for all of the nations bordering the North Sea. To achieve that ambitious goal it needs to run power cables through the Wadden Sea, the world’s largest system of intertidal sands and mudflats. The area is difficult to work within due to its dynamic environment, sensitive habi
#376 Sandy’s Left Turn: Building a Resilient Manhattan
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy turned sharply west and drove a storm surge into New York Harbor. Lower Manhattan flooded, a substation failed leaving more than 220,000 people without power, and damage across the wider region reached $65–70 billion.
Protecting the Lower East Side from the next storm means threading flood walls, berms and deployable gates through one of the densest parts of th
#375 Innovation Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
In this episode, we celebrate Showerkap, winner of the Innovation Champion category in the Engineering Matters Awards 2026. The final award of the series. Judged by representatives from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Engineers Without Borders UK, the award recognises innovation across all of this year’s categories.
Showerkap won gold for technology designed to reduce the water and
#374 Net Zero Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
In this Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate the winner of the Net Zero Champion category, which recognises projects, processes, and tools that make a real contribution to reducing carbon emissions. The highest awards were to be given to those entries that demonstrate significant impact or widespread scope, or that overcome a specific challenge.
Our gold-level award-winning entrant
#373 Lubricating the Lunar Frontier
Returning to the Moon is the next step, but staying there is the next leap. Abrasive and electrostatically-charged dust particles cling to every surface, and find their way into every mechanism, while a radiation-blasted lunar surface swings from 130°C in the sun to a brisk -173°C in the shade.
To survive and thrive in the lunar wasteland, we will need habitat modules, power plants, autonomous
#372 Sustainability Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
In this Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate the winner of the Sustainability Champion category, which recognises organisations driving groundbreaking innovation to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It promotes the conservation of natural resources, reduces waste and pollution, and supports social and economic
#371 Revisited: Place is the Space for Growth
How should local and regional leaders encourage investment in their communities? Around the world, cities struggle with a legacy of industrial decline. In England, devolution of planning policy to mayoral combined authorities has allowed for regions like Greater Manchester to outpace national growth. But within regions, local areas can themselves fall behind, and require a joined up approach to p
#370 The Forgotten Arsenal of the Ocean: Clearing Dumped Munitions
At the end of the Second World War, millions of tonnes of unwanted explosives and weapons were disposed of at sea. For decades, these dumped munitions lay hidden beneath the waves as time and tide passed over them.
Now 80 years past that mass-dumping, corrosion has begun to expose the explosive chemicals inside these weapons casings. Lead, mercury and TNT breakdown products have begun to be de
#369 Health & Safety Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
In this Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate the winners of the Health & Safety Champion category, which recognises engineers who are changing how we protect people in some of the world’s most challenging environments.
Engineering is often measured by what we build: the bridges, tunnels, infrastructure, and systems that shape our world. But true engineering excellence is also d
#368 Community Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
This episode is part of the Engineering Matters Awards series, recognising individuals and organisations making an outstanding contribution to the engineering profession and wider society. Engineering is often judged by technical achievements: better products, more efficient processes, and breakthrough innovations. But some of the industry’s most meaningful contributions happen beyond the core aim
#367 Nature Based Solutions: The End of Grey Engineering
For decades, infrastructure design has relied on ‘grey’ engineering: concrete flood walls, steel structures and rigid systems designed to control the environment. But with climate pressures intensifying, engineers are increasingly looking to work with nature rather than against it. This episode looks at the growing role of nature-based solutions in building climate-resilient infrastructure that ca
#366 Diversity & Inclusion Champion – Engineering Matters Awards
In this special Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate excellence across the industry, highlighting our Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the Diversity & Inclusion Champion category. Engineering suffers from a ‘leaky pipe’ problem, where a great many potential professionals count themselves out of a career long before university. It is a problem that has...
#365 Making a Success in British Construction
Greg Wilkes has seen the highs and lows of running a small business in the UK construction sector. From being talked into staying with his apprenticeship by his father as a young carpenter, to success, failed partnerships, and success again, he began to make it a point to note down everything he did that worked,...
#364b Environment Champion – Engineering Matters Awards gold winner
In this episode, we tell the story of MERMAID from the Wildlife Conservation Society, this year’s Engineering Matters Awards Environment Gold Champion. Emily Darling, director for coral reef conservation at WCS, describes why scientists need better ways of sharing coral data, and how MERMAID helps them do so. Rita Bento, a researcher at NYU Abu...
#364a Environment Champion – Engineering Matters Awards shortlist
Around the world, engineers are working to protect the environment. In this episode, we introduce eight companies who are taking steps to safeguard the natural world. All have been shortlisted for the Engineering Matters Awards. The first three shortlisted entries look at ways of understanding the natural world. Petra Ringeltaube explains how RWE’s SeaMi is...
#363 Uncrewed Vessels and Unprecedented Data
In its seventh Allocation Round the UK executed the largest offshore wind auction in European history, putting pen to paper on 8.4GW of new capacity, enough to power 10 million homes. Allocation Round 8 is expected to be even more ambitious, as the UK looks to upgrade its radar systems to enable a 10GW installation,...
#362 Revisited: Skyscrapers, Predicting The Future
The London skyline is undergoing perhaps its most significant transformation in decades as a new ‘vertical renaissance’ is sending tremors of excitement from Guildhall to Mansion House. The City of London Corporation says that over half a million square metres of office space was granted planning permission in the City in 2025, equivalent to more...
#361 Revisited: Space – The Robotic Age
Humanity’s furthest ever journey into space has been delayed. Again. An interruption to the flow of helium forced NASA to scrap the revised 6 March launch date of the Artemis II mission, and begin the slow process to roll the increasingly unfortunate rocket back to the vehicle assembly bay. While the delays are frustrating for...
#360 Systems Change: Thinking in Patterns
Systems thinking allows engineers to understand complex systems and the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of their interventions. It avoids the accidental creation of new problems when solving a first, and allows for the identification of effective leverage points for more impactful, sustainable change. The world, the built environment and our infrastructure all have patterns...
#359k Transit-Oriented Communities in Toronto
Around the world, urban planners are seeking to deliver urban growth and increase access to city centres through the development of transit-oriented communities. These combine new publicly-backed transport infrastructure, with privately-financed residential and commercial development. It’s a route to more sustainable cities, but it involves careful navigation of budgetary constraints and the needs
#359j – Modern Vernacular in Saudi Arabia
In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia, buoyed by a surge in oil prices, embarked on an ambitious building programme. The country moved rapidly to develop its cities and infrastructure. However, Prince Salman, then the governor of Riyadh, now the country’s King, saw that this was resulting in cities that were unmoored from their local context. This...
#359i Stone as Structure
For facade specialists, stone is highly prized for its performance and character. The right choice of stone can anchor a building in its local context, or make a striking statement. While stone has fallen out of use, modern approaches mean that it could now be used in the same standardised ways as steel, concrete and...
#359h Sustainability in Paris
Sustainability experts often use a hierarchy to help their thinking about interventions. The best way to limit your impact is to do nothing at all. If that’s not possible, then use as few materials as you can. And finally, if extensive work must be conducted, then replace more carbon-intensive materials with those with less impacts....
#359g An Intergenerational Approach to Sustainability
Lifecycle carbon assessment – the process of monitoring the total carbon footprint of a structure from the first spade in the ground to demolition – sits at the confluence of engineering and sustainability. As we adapt our processes and understanding of the built environment, LCA is a critical measure to guide our decision making. The...
#359f Sustainability and Adaptation in East London
Retrofitting is an instrumental step in reducing the carbon footprint of a city’s building stock. It also extends the life of a building and has a lower environmental impact than demolishing inefficient properties and building anew. Even a new development, such as the East Village in Stratford London, although just 12 years old, is still...
#359e A Better View of Stadium Design
When you are designing a stadium for the World Cup, or any major sport, it’s vital to have a fan’s-eye view. For more than a century, the architects tasked with designing stadiums have used the C-value, developed by Victorian theatre designer John Russel. But this value just measures the view in one direction, towards the...
#359d A Digital Path to Nuclear’s New Generation
Nuclear power promises to provide energy when other sources can’t. But nuclear plants currently take a long time to build—often more than a decade. Anthony Burch, digital manager, Egis, and his colleagues, are working on the key components of Hinkley Point C in England. These form the so-called ‘nuclear island’—the reactor building and four associated...
#359c A Fusion of Minds at ITER
At ITER, in France, scientists and engineers from around the world are working together to develop nuclear fusion at power plant scale. The project could one day lead to a world of truly abundant green energy. In this episode, Caroline Dixon explains some of the logistical challenges of working on a project that is perhaps...
#359b Water, Energy and the Environment in the Middle East
There is a changing view of the environment among public sector clients in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has ambitious goals like generating 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030, the UAE has targets such as diverting 80 percent of its waste from landfill by by 2031, and Qatar is moving towards 100% treated wastewater...
#359a Australia’s Most Flooded Town
Lismore sits at the confluence of two rivers in New South Wales. Covering more than 1,300 square kilometres, it is home to more than 44,000 people. In 2022, it was hit by a huge flood, the highest on record, followed by a smaller, though still devastating, second flood. Five lives were lost in the disasters,...
#359 Intro – A Sustainable and Resilient World
Society needs to consider the impact of climate change on our cities because it is no longer a future challenge; it is a present reality. Cities with their concentrated populations, infrastructure and supply challenges are uniquely vulnerable to climate-related shocks, exposed to risks such as floods, heatwaves, water scarcity and any disruption to their systems....
#358 Experts in Risk
Residents of tall buildings can face significant risks in the event of fire or structural failure. At Grenfell Tower in the UK, a fire in a resident’s kitchen spread rapidly around the building, due to failures in the testing and installation of cladding materials, and leading to widespread loss of life. The inquiry into the...
#357c Well-Grounded Decisions: Construction and Operations
A wise asset owner builds on solid ground. Unless ground risks are clearly identified, projects can easily be delayed or delivered over budget. Some risks may not even be fully understood until an asset begins operations. In this final episode of three on ground risks and the asset life cycle, Karim Khalaf explains how one...
#357b Well-Grounded Decisions: Design Development
Without a clear understanding of ground conditions, unquantified risk can be transferred from project owner to lead contractors when a contract is signed. In the first episode of this three part series, we explored how geophysical screening, using non-intrusive methods, can be used to reduce uncertainty in site selection and provide clarity on construction costs...
#357a Well-Grounded Decisions: Site Selection
On any project, uncertainty creates risk. Decisions that are made without a good understanding of site conditions can result in overengineering or threats to safety. Delivery may be delayed, and unexpected costs incurred. To avoid these risks, project owners and other stakeholders should question their assumptions and get real, actionable insights throughout the project lifecycle....
#356 Making Space for Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment is an overlooked lifesaver. While the medical advances of the last 100 years—penicillin, chemotherapy, and, more recently, mRNA vaccines—have transformed healthcare, keeping our water supplies free from pathogens like cholera and dysentery, has saved many more lives. The systems developed to treat wastewater are so successful that we can afford to flush and...
#355 The Real Value of Nature
Green-grey engineering combines nature-based solutions with traditional civil engineering. It can be used in flood protection, with mangroves acting as a first line of defense rather than relying wholly on seawalls or earthen berms. As parts of the world face dual threats of flood and drought, the same systems can incorporate drainage and water collection....
#354 AI in Infrastructure: Adoption and Guardrails
The infrastructure sector is adopting AI with enthusiasm. A new whitepaper from Bentley Systems, Pinsent Masons, Turner & Townsend, and Mott MacDonald, The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Built Environment, surveyed the sector, and found the 48% of the infrastructure companies they spoke to were trialling AI, or had already implemented it. But only...
#353 Carbon Assessment in a Time of Housebuilding
This week, the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, or EAC, released a report on environmental sustainability and housing growth. The UK government is striving to meet a target of building one and a half million new homes, and has raised concerns about the risk that environmental objections could delay their construction. But, the...
#352 Health Monitoring for Offshore Wind
From blood pressure monitors and smart watches, to MRIs and step counters, many of us make tracking health metrics part of our daily routine. Armed with data, we can take steps to extend our lives. And this approach can also be used to extend the life of key components of our energy infrastructure. The offshore...
#351 Rough Seas and Reliable Defence Partnerships
Around the world, climate change and shifting alliances are opening up new theatres of geopolitical competition. In the Arctic, Canada must be ready to patrol a new coastline; in the Pacific, Australia faces increased tension with China. Naval defence will be a key component of these nations’ security planning. But the so-called ‘exquisite’ capabilities of...
#350 Living in Space: The Next Generation of Astronauts
Dr Meganne Christian is a scientist and adventurer. In her research, she has studied the performance of novel materials including the use of nanoscale metals for hydrogen storage, and the use of graphene across a diverse range of applications. But her career has taken her far from the traditional university lab. In 2018-2019, Meganne was...
#349 Never Again: Embedding Safety in Engineering
The tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in west London demanded new ways of thinking about professionalism and ethics in the engineering sector. However, since that awful night in 2017, which saw the loss of 72 lives, fatal incidents and near misses have continued to happen: in Genoa, in Toddbrook, in Miami, and on many more...
#348 Modelling Distributed Energy Storage
In Europe, and around the world, renewable electricity generation is being built at pace. However, these sources of energy create a new challenge: they are intermittent, and will not generate power on dark, windless days. One solution to the challenge is to install grid scale storage. If you’re building an offshore wind farm, with a...
#347 Revisited: The Pipeline to Net Zero
Last week, at the end of September 2025, a study by Regen, commissioned by the MCS Foundation, found that biomethane had a limited capacity to replace natural gas in the UK’s domestic heating. The study emphasised the importance of focusing on electricity and heat pumps to keep our homes warm. This means that much of...
#346 Scaling Carbon-Free Cement
It’s a simple fact of chemistry that cement cannot be produced, without also producing carbon dioxide. But this does not mean that the sector—and its clients in the construction industry—cannot decarbonise. The equally simple solution is just to capture and store the carbon dioxide, before it can enter the atmosphere. The challenge is how to...
#345 Pinpoint Precision in Space Positioning
When launching a satellite into orbit, getting the positioning right is of paramount importance. As humanity sends more satellites into space, the vast space above our heads has become hazardously busy. State-of-the-art positioning technology has helped to counter this problem, with existing systems able to track the location of satellites to an accuracy of metres....
#344 Networks Under Water: Transport, Flooding and Resilience
When flooding happens, damage and disruption ripples out across assets and infrastructure. Private businesses and homeowners can insure themselves against direct damages to buildings. But the impacts on the local economy go much further: debris can block transport networks, causing businesses to fail and reducing tax revenues, at a time when increased local government spending...
#343 Weaving Software into Automation
Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented the punch card as a means of inputting control data to one of the earliest automated technologies, the weavers’ loom. A generation later, Charles Babbage used this innovation as part of his design for an ‘analytical engine’, and Ada Lovelace demonstrated how sets of instructions could be written for the engine to...
#342 Real Solutions and the Industrial Metaverse
The metaverse is often thought of as an alternative virtual space, a world separate from reality where we can hang out with avatars of our friends and families, or shop at virtual stores. But the industrial metaverse ties the physical and the virtual much more closely together, with a focus that is less on photorealism,...
#341 Opening the Door to Engineering – Engineering Matters Awards winners
Alan Lusty founded adi Group, a multidisciplinary engineering business supporting major manufacturers. He is part of a group that offers engineering services in 23 sectors, with over 750 employees. But he left school at 16 without qualifications, instead pursuing an apprenticeship. At adi Group, more than 10% of employees are apprentices: double the rate set...
#340 Diving Deep into Electric Machinery
Electrification of construction equipment is an ongoing and necessary part of the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and restrict global warming. Sixty years ago, Fugro developed the first commercial cone penetration testing equipment to run on electrical power, and today it is continuing on that journey by electrifying the machine that carries it. What...
#339 Integrated Contracts and Innovative Delivery
On two major road projects in the UK work was completed on time and under budget. But not every project can claim such success. Defects, delays and cost overruns plague projects around the world. Projects such as those at Junction 10 on the M25 London orbital motorway, and on a stretch of the A19 near...
#338 Bio-Inspired Innovation & Systemic Sustainability
Nature has long served as a blueprint for engineering breakthroughs from the kingfisher-inspired design of Japan’s Bullet Train to termite mounds that inform energy-efficient buildings. Siemens Digital Industries is taking this concept further by combining biomimicry with digital technology to tackle sustainability challenges across entire industries. Eryn Devola, Head of Sustainability at Siemens
#337 Breaking Barriers to STEM with Lightyear Foundation – Engineering Matters Awards winners
In this episode, we spotlight the remarkable work of the Lightyear Foundation, the winner of the Engineering Matters Awards 2025 Gold Champion for Diversity and Inclusion. The foundation is the only UK charity dedicated to engaging disabled and neurodivergent young people with STEM. Chief Executive Jeff Banks and Senior Programme Manager Emma Zeale explain how...
#336 Gravity-Powered Heavy Haul – Engineering Matters Awards winners
At a quarry in Turkey, heavy haul trucks are carrying hundreds of tonnes of materials, with no external power. It’s not quite perpetual motion, but it is removing the need for diesel or cables on a hard working site. NUH Cement commissioned ABB to repower a 30-year-old Euclid haul truck. The truck collects loads from...
#335 Monitoring Methane: The Tech Behind the Tech – Engineering Matters Awards winners
LongPath Technologies has taken Nobel-winning discoveries, and applied them to a key cause of climate change: methane leaks from oil and gas facilities. The sector now turns to LongPath to establish monitoring across facilities. But as LongPath sought to scale from innovation to commercialization, it turned to Red Pitaya for a vital component. In this...
#334 Digital Construction’s Past, Present and Future
In 2016 management consultants McKinsey released a report that reverberated around the construction and engineering sectors. This sector, the report said, was consistently delivering projects late—often 20% longer to finish than expected—and over budget: by as much as 80%. The report’s authors pointed out that the tools that could resolve these delays and cost overruns,...
#333 Agents of Change – AI in Industry
Generative AI has swept across our society. In every app, up it pops, eager to offer a helping hand. The opportunity to talk to computer systems as if they are human, or to create memes at unprecedented speed, has great appeal for many. But is it ready to do the hard work at the heart...
#332 The Future of Airports Around the World
Airports are at the forefront of a global transformation, rethinking their role not just as transport hubs but as sustainable, connected cities of the future. In this episode we explore how airports around the world are responding to environmental pressures, technological advancements, and increasing passenger demands. From Hong Kong’s ambitious runway reclamation to Heathrow’s efforts...
#331 Life Extension for Infrastructure
In the second half of the 20th Century, the world was transformed through infrastructure construction. New roads and railways, levees and power lines, delivered unprecedented comfort and convenience, and laid the foundation for an economy driven by easy transport and trade. But today, as many governments struggle with budgetary constraints and the need to balance...
#330 A Village Full of Maths Tutors – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
Helping the next generation achieve their full potential doesn’t just take commitment from their parents or carers, or from professionals like teachers. It takes, as the saying goes, a village. In Derby, nuclear engineer Katie Jarman has assembled the equivalent of a village full of volunteer maths tutors, all recruited from her employer Rolls-Royce, to...
#329 Scaling Low Carbon Innovation – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
Ben Gibbons and his colleagues at Circular11 are developing ways to add value to hard-to-recycle light plastics. They take packaging, and turn it into a lumber-equivalent, suitable for long term use as post and rail fencing. But to maintain tight loops of circularity, they needed to understand the supply chain they were targeting. National Highways...
#328 Listening for Leaks – Engineering Matters Awards Innovation Champion, FIDO
Worldwide, water is in short supply and high demand, with very real consequences for human health and security. Many countries struggle to maintain aging networks, meaning that more than 20% of clean water is lost before it reaches the customer. New industries, like data centres, are adding to demand, as they use water for cooling....
#327 Nuclear Engineering for School Children – Engineering Matters Awards 2025
On the coast of rural Cumbria, in England’s northeast, a once-secretive nuclear site is transforming its legacy by investing in the engineers of tomorrow. Sellafield, known historically for producing weapons-grade plutonium and nuclear energy, has now begun the 100 year process of decommissioning. At the Sellafield Engineering & Maintenance Centre of Excellence, engineers research and...
#326 Revisited: The Green, Green, Shores of Home
The past months have seen a shift in international trade, of a scale not seen for decades. New US tariffs have created uncertainty for investors, and promise to spark a global trade war. While these new challenges to cross-border trade are unique, recent years have seen another shift in industrial policy, particularly in the UK,...
#325 Real world sustainability and the digital revolution
The rise of AI and machine learning promises a revolution in how we live and work. Expert reasoning and mundane tasks will be completed for us in the cloud. But the cloud is not ethereal or abstract. It is a globe spanning mass of physical infrastructure. Enabling this transformation will demand a huge expansion in...
#324 A Shift of Power on Europe’s Borders
This February, with the flick of a switch, there was a vast shift of power on Europe’s borders. The Baltic states’ electrical grids, built in the 1960s while these countries were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, had been under the control of Moscow. In one weekend, the transmission system operators in Latvia, Lithuania, and...
#323 Engineers Deliver Impact: The Engineering Matters Awards 2025
Engineers from around the world gathered at the Postal Museum in London for the Engineering Matters Awards 2025, presented in partnership with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IMechE, and Engineers Without Borders UK, EWB UK. In this episode, we introduce the award gold champions. In episodes to come, we will look in more detail at...
#322 Engineering Ecosystems: Italy’s Seagrass Meadows
Seagrass meadows are the engineers of the marine ecosystem. They provide habitats, support biodiversity, prevent coastal erosion and sequester carbon dioxide. For this reason Italy has embarked upon a world leading project to map these coastal ecosystems at a national scale, enabling it to plan protection and restoration measures that will improve ocean health and...
#321 Circular Construction – Designing for Disassembly
We can reuse and retrofit buildings to extend their lifespans, and reduce their embodied carbon impact. But some structures may not be suitable for full reuse: some will have reached the end of their safe life; others will have no viable reuse; and some retrofit projects may require partial dismantling to reduce loadings on the...
#320 International Year of Quantum: 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics has transformed our understanding of reality, but how did we get here? In this episode, we celebrate the International Year of Quantum, marking 100 years since the birth of this groundbreaking field. From the fierce debates between Einstein and Bohr to the mind-bending implications of superposition and entanglement, we explore how quantum mechanics...
#319 Revisited: Green Engineering, with Bison
Britain’s biodiversity has been declining sharply over the last 50 years. The country is now one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. Despite legislation and efforts to stem the tide of wildlife population decline, little has helped. In February 2025, the UK government announced a new approach to reintroductions of beavers in England....
#318 Gaming Out a Career in Nuclear
At a unique hackathon in Manchester, a diverse group of hackers, coders, and gamers gathered to design digital solutions for the nuclear industry, blending innovation, teamwork, and pressure-driven problem-solving. The event, called HackAFuture, served as a groundbreaking careers initiative, offering the winning team not just bragging rights, but jobs with AtkinsRéalis developing their solution.
#317 Human Factors, Human Error, and Safety by Design
When we search for causes of accidents, we often assume a binary: either mechanical failure, or human error, were to blame, and we must pick between them. But labelling an accident as caused by human error doesn’t teach us anything. It makes no effort to understand what caused people to make the decisions they did....
#316 What Can AI Engineers Learn From Medical Professionals?
AI is evolving so fast it eludes definition. The potential impact of the field is barely understood, even by those working in it. ‘Move-fast-and-break-things’ practitioners are deploying AI systems in autonomous vehicles, in courts, in medical diagnosis, and now even at the heart of the US federal government. Few of the constraints that govern individual...
#315 Renewing the World, Without Costing the Planet
How should engineers think about their duty to design safe structures? For IStructE’s head of climate action Will Arnold, this duty extends beyond the structure, to the safety of everyone on the planet. With renewable energy cutting operational carbon emissions, the majority of the engineering sector’s impact on climate change now comes from embodied carbon....
#314 Remote Operations, To the Moon and Back
Ten years ago, Fugro set out on an ambitious mission: to bring expert staff off of vessels, and into a purpose built remote operations centre, or ROC. The first of these ROCs, in Houston, now allows specialist staff to work on multiple projects at once, giving customers the real time data and analysis they need...
#313 Introducing: Mapping Italy’s Seagrass for Biodiversity Gain, from Planet Beyond
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has a 100 year history of mapping the world’s oceans. John Nyberg, technical director, explains how the organisation’s role in understanding our oceans is evolving. Now, rather than just recording ocean depths for mariners, the organisation is setting standards for how we record environmental data. In Italy, this approach is...
