Editorial

Structural Survey

ISSN: 0263-080X

Article publication date: 1 September 1999

268

Citation

Hoxley, M. (1999), "Editorial", Structural Survey, Vol. 17 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.1999.11017caa.001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited


Editorial

Readers may recall that one theme of my editorial for the last issue was the potential role of information technology in the exchange of project information by construction professionals. The recently published Barbour Report (1999), however, suggests that surveyors are lagging behind other members of the project team in the adoption of electronic media. The report is based on over 400 interviews with industry professionals and analysis of 5,000 responses to the Barbour Index Building Product Compendium user survey.

The report reveals that access to technical and product information within the industry is still predominantly paper based with around 90 per cent of respondents still storing information in hard copy. Only 45 per cent of surveyors said that they had access to information in an electronic format compared with around 80 per cent of architects, M&E and structural engineers. Significantly, construction professionals overall see Internet-delivered technical and product information as the single biggest challenge to the current preference for paper formats. Over the next two years, respondents predict a threefold increase in Internet use against a corresponding decline in paper delivery of some 50 per cent. The report finds that speed is the single biggest benefit associated with the use of electronic tools although lack of compatibility is proving to be the greatest obstacle to their adoption, together with professional concern for contractual, legal and quality assurance procedures.

Elsewhere in this issue I have provided a fairly detailed summary of the Twelfth Report of SCOSS ­ The Standing Committee on Structural Safety. This important report also has something to say on the use of computers and their implications for potential shortfalls in safety. The suggestion is that there is inappropriate modelling of structures for analysis, inability of engineers to use approximate design methods efficiently and too much trust in computer outputs and the distancing and thus the loss of practical engineering thinking on the problems being addressed. They report worldwide concern about this problem and welcome shortly forthcoming guidance from the Institution of Structural Engineers.

Clearly computers can take the drudgery out of many of the more mundane tasks that professionals undertake but they should not be used as an excuse to allow one's brain to disengage. I always impress on my students the importance of inspecting each property afresh and not being constrained by a library of standard building survey clauses. Such clauses can of course make report writing so much easier but they should not get in the way of objective and complete reporting of the actual property being inspected.

The SCOSS report also discusses an interesting concept that it calls "collective amnesia". This it defines as the natural but not inevitable tendency amongst engineers to forget the structural failures of the previous generation and the lessons to be learned from them. Rather worrying research that has identified an apparent 30-year cycle of over-confidence amongst bridge engineers in the last 150 years is referred to. Kletz (1991) in relation to the process industries, identified a cycle of corporate forgetfulness allowing errors and oversight previously identified to creep back in less than ten years. He pointed to the phenomenon that memory is personal and experiences are not easily passed from one generation to the next. SCOSS recommend that educators, CPD providers and feedback mechanisms, such as SCOSS and the technical press, be aware of this problem and do all they can to offset this natural tendency. A paper or series of papers on the structural failures of the past sounds like a good idea.

Perhaps it was fear of collective amnesia which persuaded English Heritage to request the British Standards Institution to put down, in black and white, the principles of conservation of historic buildings in BS 7913: 1998. At first sight this subject is an unusual one for a British Standard but the document is likely to become a guiding light for all those working in this area. A brief summary of the Standard is provided elsewhere in this issue. It is likely that local planning authorities will insist that all work to historic buildings be carried out in accordance with BS 7913. However, professionals are provided with something of a get-out clause in 5.2: "While the application of particular specifications, structural design codes and calculations can be appropriate in many circumstances, there can be other circumstances where it will be necessary to follow professional experience and judgement, on the basis of what has been proved to work". I suggest that you try quoting this clause next time a conservation officer lays down the law!

Mike Hoxley

References

(The) Barbour Report (1999), The Sourcing and Exchange of Information across the Project Team, Barbour Index plc, Windsor.

BS 7913: 1998, Guide to the Principles of the Conservation of Historic Buildings, BSI, London.

Kletz, T. (1991), An Engineer's View of Human Error, 2nd ed.,Institution of Chemical Engineers, Rugby.

SCOSS (1999), Structural Safety 1997-99: Review and Recommendations, Twelfth Report of SCOSS ­ The Standing Committee on Structural Safety, London.

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