ROUND TABLE 49
Cutting corners might lower upfront costs, but it can increase the likelihood of delays, show-impacting failures, safety issues and last-minute labour or rental expenses
Adam Corrie In my experience, most installation risks come down to a poorly written or inadequate set of RAMS (Risk Assessment Method Statements) for the job, or a crew not taking the time to study them. I spent several years working in art and design higher education, where both staff and students are using tools and equipment in workshops or show installations. Safe systems of work are essential in these demanding environments, where novice users are encouraged to learn new skills in a short space of time. Many of the RAMS I use to this day evolved from those originally written for university technical areas. In live events, PPE is the norm – crew members expect to wear steel toes and high-visibility workwear for the duration of the job. Hard hats typically only come out if they are absolutely required (or the moment another crew member drops something from a height!) For permanent installations, the culture around PPE can be challenging beyond the first fix. Once construction has concluded and the site has been handed over by the main contractor, audio-visual installation crews tend to take a more relaxed approach to safety and so enforcement can come across as pedantic.
We typically walk clients through specific scenarios. We frame it as a risk trade-off: cutting corners might lower upfront costs, but it can increase the likelihood of delays, show-impacting failures, safety issues and last-minute labour or rental expenses. Adam Corrie We tend to have very open conversations with clients about the value engineering process. As early as possible, we normalise discourse around trade-offs between cost, performance and availability, and we find this manages expectations most effectively. Our design process also tends to separate out ‘must haves’ from ‘nice to haves’, allowing us to identify a minimum viable product we can validate any VE exercise against. It is best to avoid pretending that any technology is indestructible. We share our past experiences, both good and bad, and talk frankly about critical spares, MTBF, warranty options, repair processes, outages and system recovery scenarios. We often encourage clients to speak to other organisations that operate similar systems. These candid conversations are useful for everyone – understanding what worked well and what didn’t, which bits they would do differently if they were starting again from scratch.
Markus Beyr My favourite phrase for clients is ‘grass doesn’t grow faster if you pull it’. It serves as a straightforward reminder they can easily refer to when they need reassurance or guidance. Kyle Slaugh We educate clients about the risks of cutting corners by translating technical shortcuts into real-world outcomes they care about: reliability, audience experience and cost. Instead of saying ‘this is best practice’, we explain what changes when a corner is cut, what fails first, how visible it will be and how hard (or expensive) it is to fix on site. How do you educate clients about the risks of cutting corners? particularly keen on health and safety as a discipline. Courses that cover PUWER 98 are hugely useful if the job requires any on-site or workshop fabrication involving power tools. Training and certification are also fundamental elements in reducing risk and can be mutually beneficial in terms of staff development: some of these include PASMA for erecting scaffold towers, IPAF for operating MEWPs and IOSH or NEBOSH for those who are
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