The Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE Announces Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety in the United States
The Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (SEI) has announced that it has joined the United Kingdom’s global program on Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety by creating a United States program: Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety United States (CROSS-US).
Through CROSS-US, individuals may now confidentially submit reports of structural failures, near misses and other similar incidents. First anonymized and de-identified, these reports are then forwarded to a team of distinguished subject matter experts for review. The reports with analysis commentary are then made available on the website to all free of charge. CROSS also tracks trends, publishes summary or theme reports and may direct issues of interest, such as code-writing bodies, to organizations that may be in a position to improve the standards of practice. Anyone interested in structural safety is encouraged to submit reports and to avail themselves of the valuable information posted.
CROSS-US reports to the SEI Board of Governors (BoG), and will be run through two volunteer groups, an Executive Committee (ExCom) and a panel. The ExCom develops the overall strategy for CROSS-US and provides operational management, including budget development and monitoring. The panel consists of industry experts of various desired backgrounds and expertise, of whose objectives are to provide expert commentary on CROSS-US reports that have been collected and processed, and then disseminate information that could enable practical lessons to be learned about structural safety.
Similar to the UK model, the long-term vision is to be a robust, sustainable operation, overseen by an industry steering committee, with a panel of volunteer technical and professional experts and support from industry and government entities.
CROSS, originated in the UK in 2005, is a system designed to improve standards of practice through learning from structural failures and incidents. Modeled after the US Aviation Safety Reporting System designed by NASA, it has been very effective in the UK in improving practice to reduce the incidence of failures. CROSS has proven to be a widely used resource that has positively impacted practice in the UK. For example, following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in London in 2017 the UK government is implementing several measures to strengthen building regulations, and one of the recommendations from an Independent Review is that CROSS be expanded.
CROSS-US joins efforts in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and soon Germany, with the formal creation of CROSS-International planned thereafter. For more information on Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety (CROSS-US), visit www.CROSS-US.org
*Please direct enquiries on CROSS-US to Glenn Bell ([email protected]), Andy Herrmann ([email protected]) or Laura Champion ([email protected]).
ABOUT THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 150,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society. ASCE works to raise awareness of the need to maintain and modernize the nation’s infrastructure using sustainable and resilient practices, advocates for increasing and optimizing investment in infrastructure, and improve engineering knowledge and competency. SEI is one 9 Institutes within ASCE with a mission To Advance and Serve the Structural Engineering Profession. For more information, visit www.asce.org or www.asce.org/SEIand follow us on Twitter, @ASCETweets and @ASCEGovRel and @ASCE_SEI
