P.J. Thomas

J-Value/ a Universal Scale for Health and Safety Spending

The J-value has been developed as a universal scale to measure and access health and safety expenditure in all sectors of the economy. Initial steps of deriving the J-value involve finding a suitable measure for the quality of life and determine the factors that influence the quality of life of an individual. It is being used in a number of different sectors, demonstrating its ability to produce figures for the value of a human life that coincide approximately with previous estimates, based on different approaches. It has also been proposed for use by decision makers on health and safety in all sectors due to its capability to translate a variety of cost-benefit formats onto a common and objective factor and its ability to interpret the amount of expenditure that is to be considered. It is also suggested that its adoption could lead to more consistent and better targeting of health and safety expenditure in all areas of the economy. Language: en

Tools for System Management

What are the tools needed if the complex systems and projects essential to modern life are to be commissioned on time and maintained without mishap? The Institute decided to run a workshop to investigate this question. The Workshop on Tools for System Management was held on 16 September 2008 at City University, London and opened by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Malcolm Gillies. The event brought together eminent practitioners in the defence, medical, energy and transport sectors, a number of whom were asked to give 10-minute presentations, which were then dissected in the following 20 minutes. The discussion was wide in its scope and deep in its detail. Key concepts that cropped up repeatedly in the discussions were: • Completeness, the holistic perspective that recognises that constraints are imposed on the System Of Interest (SOI) from the external environment within which it lies – the Wider System Of Interest (WSOI). System analysis must identify the vital but often intractable influences arising from legal, political and environmental factors, as well as the complication of what has gone before and is still in place – the Legacy. A solution found to work in practice is to engage a human Champion, who must possess a wide view of the system and its interactions, a “systems view”, and be committed to making the scheme work. • Integration, the organizing of the partial processes and products into a complete whole, which implies managing the disparate teams needed in a large project, as well as moulding together the diversity of formal tools and techniques available to system science. A systemic methodology for modelling the SOI will include general systems theory, control theory, probabilistic risk analysis and economics. • Maintenance, in the sense of the management of the discipline, retaining and maintaining the body of knowledge and the formal methods of system science as a coherent discipline, so as to avoid reinventing the wheel. • Feedback, the monitoring of the system and subsystems so that the unexpected, emergent changes are identified and responded to in a timely and appropriate manner.

An Institute for the 21st Century

The Journal is republishing this strategy paper because of its fundamental importance for the future direction of the Institute. It was rushed out in condensed-print form at the end of 2007 to allow members the earliest possible sight of its conclusions and recommendations, but it is now being reprinted in full format to encourage a larger readership amongst members. Since the paper was completed in September 2007, the Institute has begun taking steps to develop its role as National Member Organisation of the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that body. Meanwhile, in furtherance of its participation in the National Member Organisation of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), the Institute is hosting this year’s UKACC Lecture in April, where Professor Philip M’Pherson will be discussing the relevance of system science to industry and society. Furthermore, the Institute has established a working group at Presidential level with INCOSE UK in order to assess how best to develop system science in the UK and to consider what professional recognition we can achieve jointly for UK system scientists and engineers. Last, but by no means least, the Institute is looking for reactions from younger members on the formation of a YGEN Network. An advertisement follows the article, and we are hoping very much that younger members will respond positively.

Learning to Exploit Tolerances: An Undergraduate Laboratory Exercise in System Design of an Instrument

A laboratory exercise is described that introduces the engineering student to design to meet a customer specification. The student learns to appreciate the system-engineering nature of design, where multiple objectives need to be satisfied. The design vehicle is one of the most conceptually simple instruments, namely a voltmeter based on a moving-coil movement. The student finds out how to reduce cost by making maximum use of the tolerance-forming part of the customer specification. He or she learns how both deterministic and statistical methods may be brought to bear. The statistical method applied may also be of more general interest to instrument designers working in industry.

From Haber-Bosch to Creutzfeldt-Jakob: A Control Engineer's Perspective

Mr Past President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour to be here tonight and to have the opportunity to present the Presidential Address for 2001. By custom, the President is encouraged to impart a personal view, but there is, I believe, an underlying expectation that at least some of the things said will be of general interest and utility. I intend and hope that my talk tonight will conform to those twin traditions. As President of one of the 36 engineering institutions in the UK, I must confess at the outset that my early steps towards engineering were somewhat hesitant, since my first intention was to study languages at university. As a result the first Germanic names that I encountered belonged to the poets and playwrights of my sixth-form studies: Goethe, Schiller and Heine, rather than the eponyms of this talk. But during the course ofmy linguistic instruction, it occurred to me that while fluency in German and, indeed, French might be desirable, together with a knowledge of the respective literatures, there might nonetheless be a limit to the practical utility to be gained. So, probably a little later than many present this evening, I came to think that science and, after a little more thought, engineering offered better possibilities for making a useful contribution. And this change in my career path caused me to encounter a whole new set ofGermanic names, including those contained in the title of this talk, as I shall now explain. Given my academic history, it was not unnatural that I had to spend my pre-university year catching up on Maths and Physics in order to satisfy the entrance requirements for a degree course in engineering. I remember that I found A-level physics hard work but fascinating. And one feature that stood out clearly was the extraordinary precision of many of the ground-breaking measurements. For example, I and my colleagues were taught about Millikans experiments to determine the charge on the electron, leading to the value of Coulombs amazing to be able to measure something that tiny, and with such precision. No matter that our practicals never seemed to produce anything like this degree of accuracy, it was clearly the ultimate aim. Even if we could not achieve it now, my colleagues and I thought a short spell at university would obviously do the trick! So you can imagine my shock when, in one of the fIrst classes at university, my control engineering lecturer commented that a measurement accuracy of 10% was quite reasonable for many industrial quantities, 5% was good and 3% was often as good as it gets! This was my fIrst introduction to the important culture of realism that is common to all engineers: engineering is the art ofmaking desirable things happen, even in the face of imper-

Microcomputer-Based Protection Systems

In his opening address, the Chairman, Dr A. R. Churchley (SARA) welcomed the participants (about 60 in number) and hoped that the days seminar would provide an opportunity for the stimulation of discussion on a topic of particular interest to industries in which high integrity protection and control systems played an essential role. This topic was the use of microcomputers, which were playing an increasingly important part where high integrity was required: in the mines, in avionics, communications, industrial processes, the nuclear industry, etc. It was evident that such usage was going to have a revolutionary effect and it was essential to evolve procedures by which the reliability of both the hardware and software of microcomputer systems could be assessed and quantified. This would enable meaningful comparisons to be made with hardwired systems which were in the process of being replaced.