Hackathons - the rise!

Corporate led hackathons are what I'm mulling over.

Hackathon or Exploitathon - that's all I have to say.

The Potential for Using Big Data Analytics to Predict Safety Risks by Analysing Rail Accidents

Railways 2016

The Third International Conference on
Railway Technology:
Research, Development and Maintenance

Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
5-8 April 2016

My first research paper in over 25 years will be presented at the above conference! 

Big Data what does it mean for safety management. 

The Potential for Using Big Data Analytics to Predict Safety Risks by Analysing Rail Accidents.

Dr Howard Parkinson CEng FIMechE MIRSE

Rail System Engineering Limited

Dr Gary Bamford FBCS, CEng, CITP

NTTX Advisory Limited

Plus we have 'invented' a new safety product, plus the conference is in Sardinia - can't wait. It's all top-secret until next April of course.

Now working on the follow on paper ..... onward and upward!

Big Data accidents

I am getting to hate the term but appear to be being dragged into the 'Big Data' foray. Everyone seems to be rabbiting on about it so though I may as well have a go too.

I'm running the risk of letting the cat out of the bag here as myself and a colleague Howard Parkinson (contact site http://www.railsystems.org) are in the process of writing a couple of papers on the subject. Both papers have a focus on its use in the management of safety within the rail industry.

The idea is to investigate how 'Big Data' and it's sidekick 'Analytics' can be used to help prevent accidents.

One thorny issue which has come up right at the start relates to the collection of personal data. We have generated a safety data taxonomy - business, operational, asset, social, personal etc, as part of the study. Of course safety management has a focus on the people and a large fraction of accidents are caused by - people. So, our study may be a short one if the data that matters for the 'analytics bit' is driven by staff related information. Not sure the rail industry is ready for that one with all its security and privacy issues.

We shall see - more later ......

Safety Risk Management Training

Another phase of the revival involves training provision!

Just released an overview of our safety risk management training courses - see following link.

https://sites.google.com/site/oldbam/factsheets/safety-and-risk-management-training

There are big elements of system design and software simulation in all this so make sure you know what your doing (see previous posts).

Hopefully the training pack will help bring through some new physics/engineering/computing talent.

Do you value innovation?

So the past few months have been extremely interesting on the work front.

One of the activities I've been involved in is building innovation ideas for a major rail client.

The transport industry in the UK has gone mad with innovation. All sorts of 'innovative' schemes are hitting the streets for all and sundry to bid for. Which in itself it's not a problem provided the value of submissions can be evaluated appropriately. However, therein lies the problem. Just how do you value an innovation idea.

I suppose it's relatively easy if the idea is well advanced and the value can be measured in a business generated manner. However, the ideas we came up with are potentially major game changers. Value gone bonkers but not easy to demonstrate when what's needed is a period of research to prove the idea has legs. Not easy to show what the return on investment is.

To get these ideas off the ground there is a need to be able to play around and try out things to develop proof of concept or a demonstrator. However, not everyone views this 'playing' the same - one classic comment was 'well they are great ideas to fund student beer drinking for a year'. Fortunately, they (eventually) saw the potential value was worth funding the beer for a while ;)

Bigger organisations appear to be more comfortable with incremental change rather than radical new ideas, as most have ready made processes in place for evaluating and funding them. The radical changes need to be part of a research and development approach. R and D does not sit well in most of these organisations.

Our solution ..... see future posts on how things work out.

Big Data Stories

Wondering what big data is all about?



A few examples of 'big data' projects recently - published on my asset management Scoop.it topic area.



Asset Management Engineering | Scoop.it

2014 theme park

The aim for 2014 was to get back into some form of programming in some way. Which I did manage to some extent.

Had and excursion into IFTTT programming (if you can call it that) - probably the sign of 'the internet of things' to come I would imagine. Anyway it turned out to be ridiculously easy. Must come up with a better challenge for 2015!

I also got to actually look at the workings of some code as part of a software QA review. It was related to a cock up that cost a lot (and I mean a lot) of money to plaster over the cracks. Was an interesting activity all the same. Showed in gory detail how easy it is to slip into the trap of thinking you know what you are doing on code creation until the complexity of it all - like boiling a frog - takes you into no-mans land. Result being that you haven't a clue what the thing is doing and have no way of checking if its right - belief system engineering.

In fact I have just seen a recent post in Forbes magazine about learning to program in 6 months. Only slightly made my blood boil. I dread to think what level of programmer is being churned out. More work for the ones who can sort out the mess, so shouldn't complain.

Agile was another theme for 2014. I was pleased that I managed to actually figure out how to publish a book on Amazon (Agile Random Walks - check it out) - which was again ridiculously easy. Now just need to start work on the next one!

All in all a good year for me for touching base with what really matters.

Onward and upward ....