CROSS is a confidential reporting system. We allow professionals working in the built environment to report structural and fire safety issues. We then publish this information anonymously so that knowledge can be shared to improve safety throughout the sector.
CROSS has now been receiving and publishing voluntarily submitted Safety Reports for twenty years. My presentation at the IStructE Structural safety and risk management conference will take a deeper dive into some of these Reports, all of which are available to read on the CROSS website.
Professionals can use the information in CROSS Safety Reports in various ways:
· as part of their continuous learning and development
· to improve their safety knowledge
· to keep up to date with emerging safety issues
· to find out more about best practice
You can also sign up to receive our Newsletters and updates via email.
Each CROSS Safety Report follows a consistent format. They start with a short overview—just a sentence or two—so that busy professionals can quickly determine if the report is relevant to them. After that are Key Learning Outcomes, broken down by discipline such as those for engineers, clients, or contractors. The main report follows next, which is an edited, anonymised version of the original submission. Finally, we include Expert Panel commentary to provide a technical review, pinpoint what went wrong, and suggest how it could’ve been avoided.
One of the several CROSS Reports I will be discussing in detail at the conference is Unconservative design of flat slab due to software modelling issues. This is one of several submissions we’ve received recently about problems arising from computer modelling.
The Report involves a domestic project where misaligned walls required a concrete transfer slab at first-floor level. To save time, the masonry walls were modelled as slim concrete walls—leading the software to treat them as stiff beams. This resulted in the underestimation of both deflection and reinforcement. The slab was built with less than half the required reinforcement and cracked after construction. Significant strengthening had to be carried out.
The Key Learning Outcomes for the Report highlight simple, avoidable errors including:
· no checking of the modelling concept or results
· no basic hand calculations to verify outputs
· no independent review of the model
· no experienced oversight of the final drawings
Inadequate quality assurance and checking is a common theme running through our reports, but if a checking procedure is introduced it can save an awful lot of time and money later.
Indeed, looking more widely, over twenty years of CROSS operation and 1000 plus published Safety Report, we can see the overarching lesson is that the same common themes occur again and again. These include:
· communication failures
· poor quality assurance and checking
· underinvestment in maintenance
· competency gaps
I’m sure that these common themes will not surprise many people reading this blog. While it is important to say that the vast majority of structures are designed and constructed safely, there is still a long way to go to create a safer built environment for all.
I look forward to seeing you at the conference in June, discussing these themes in greater depth in my presentation, and exploring how together as an industry, we can minimise risk and improve safety.
The conference covers best practices in structural safety, risk management, and error prevention while implementing risk assessment techniques. Register for your place today.