Rail Technical Strategy 2012 launched

Yesterday to the launch of the strategy (www.futurerailway.org/RTS/Pages/Intro.aspx)  – to a full house and much endorsement and enthusiasm.  The strategy calls for a whole-system approach, essential in a fragmented industry where stakeholders’ interests can be hard to align, and uses the Innovation Capability Maturity Model to show how industry-led initiatives can develop the sector’s capability over the horizon of the strategy.  Really nice to see the model being used (see August 13th 2012 below which describes development of the model).

Activities through the latter half of 2012

Process safety management for a European oil & gas major

Worked with the middle management of a European oil and gas major over the last few months to consider how they might most effectively embed process safety management within their teams.  We used therecently launched OECD document, “Corporate Governance for Process Safety: Guidance for Senior Leaders in High Hazard Industries” (www.oecd.org/env/chemicalsafetyandbiosafety/riskmanagementofinstallationsandchemicals/49865614.pdf) as a unifying framework, also building upon the self-assessment questionnaire in the document.

 

Benchmarking engineering capability management and development

Working alongside the Institution of Chemical Engineers, recently finished a project for a European specialty chemicals company, benchmarking approaches to the management and development of a key specific engineering capability.  We looked at comparators across Europe, the US and the Middle East in order to find a variety of perspectives.  Of particular interest are the approaches to building capability in order to drive innovation and sustainability.  We developed some interesting insights about how to link capability development to strategy, how to use tactical approaches to build a portfolio of projects to fit the business needs and how to build and maintain image in order to attract the best recruits to build the capability.  Based on these insights we’ve made some specific recommendations for the client’s next steps to build their capabilities.

 

Innovation in infrastructure

Collaborated in a project to help one of the UK’s leading infrastructure maintainers to explore routes to project-specific innovation, looking at idea generation and management processes and the selection and portfolio management of innovation ideas.

 

Open Innovation in the railway industry

Collaborated with the core team leading the FuTRO programme (Next Generation Traffic Management on UK railways), running a series of workshops to explore the implications of Open Innovation practices for the management and conduct of the work.

 

And, of course, the continuing work with Cambridge University’s Engineering Department to support the formation and management of collaborations between academics and industrial partners (engineerimpact.wordpress.com)