Key dates

Call for abstracts opens
13 February 2019

Sponsorship & Exhibition opportunities – pre-sale to 2018 supporters opens
15 February 2019

Sponsorship & Exhibition opportunities opens
22 February 2019

Call for abstracts closes
1 May 2019 - Extended until 9 May 2019

Program launch and early bird registration opens
17 June 2019

Early bird registration closes
28 August 2019

Late registration
from 9 October 2019

Pre-conference workshops
Monday 28 & Tuesday 29 October 2019

Post-conference tours
Friday 1 November 2019

Enquiries

Association Professionals

Conference Managers

PO Box 7345
Beaumaris VIC 3193
conference@absanz.org.au
P: +61 3 9586 6033

Pre-Conference Workshops

Monday 28 October 2019, 9.00am - 5.00pm

Workshop 1: Facility completion; testing, commissioning, validation, verification & warranty period – some tools to make it less painful at final handover to operations (FULL)

Neil Walls, Neil Walls Consulting Pty Ltd, Australia and Stephen Coulter, Coulter Advisory, Australia

Operational people often experience problems when occupying a new or refurbished facility. This can arise from:

  • Misunderstanding of requirements by designers and builders

  • Solutions which are not user-friendly

  • Inadequate attention, priority and time given to testing, commissioning, validation and verification

  • Lack of integrated testing of systems – contractors just test their bit. No cohesive joint effort; silo approach appears to save time

  • Inadequate or incomplete validation of systems

  • consideration of issues such as SOPs and safety features (systems do not work as they need to)

  • Inadequate understanding by facility management of the time that facility operators will need to put aside to understand, become acquainted with, and trial new facilities. Alternatives, such as engagement of suitable commissioning agents, not considered.

  • Poor, insufficient and incomplete training, familiarisation and documentation

  • Warranty period (DLP = Defects Liability Period) responsibilities poorly understood and inadequately carried out – contractors attempt to “get out” at minimum cost

  • Handover at the end of warranty occurs without proper training and information transference. Inadequate attention to ongoing engagement of incumbent contractors beyond DLP

  • Restrictions of access to vital information withheld from operators making ongoing maintenance, change or upgrade difficult

  • Inadequate planning if using external FM (= facility maintenance). Poorly understood effects on project finalisation, warranty, or how and when FM becomes involved operationally

The facilitators will raise key elements of the above issues and will provide some tools to help facility managers and operators avoid some of these pitfalls. Presentations will include the following:

  • Definition and understanding of the terminologies used by designers and builders

  • How a well-defined User Requirement Specification (URS) can help

  • How the inclusion of SOP modelling, prototypes and samples can improve outcomes

  • How tight and well-defined contract documentation can improve the result

  • How familiarisation and training procedures can help

  • What validation and verification can achieve if it is properly documented and carried out for the benefit of the operators

  • How accurate definition of warranty period responsibilities, using this period to train operators, and properly documented handover responsibilities can improve operational success

The intention is for the workshop to be inclusive; participants can share their experiences and lessons that have helped them manage situations. If time permits there will be a discussion of some typical issues to complete the workshop.

Monday 28 October 2019, 9.00am - 5.00pm

Workshop 2: Brain-friendly biorisk management training strategies

LouAnn Burnett, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, USA and Lisa van Duin, University of Melbourne, Australia

We have all attended training sessions that we liked, and we’ve attended training sessions that we didn’t like. Some training sticks and some doesn’t. Much of this good/bad, stick/don’t stick is based on how our brains function. Creating memorable training is imperative in creating a solid biorisk management culture. This course will examine “brain-friendly” strategies that can be used in biorisk management training. The course will be highly interactive, and students will design and teach-back a short brain-friendly activity.

Objectives:

  • Know why certain training strategies are more brain-friendly than others

  • Demonstrate confidence in using participant-driven, interactive techniques

  • Utilise validated brain-friendly techniques to create and teach a short activity

Tuesday 29 October 2019, 1.30pm - 5.00pm

Workshop 3: Behavioural aspects of biological containment for non-scientists

Bernadette Bradley, Curtin University, Australia

This is an interactive workshop that is intended to provide non-scientists with useful general knowledge of the way scientists need to behave in the laboratory to keep microbiological containment.

The workshop will include:

  • the behavioural aspects (administrative controls) that need to be designed concurrently with the design of the built environment (engineering controls),

  • the ways that the design of the facility can positively/negatively influence those behaviours,

  • the ongoing costs of substituting administrative controls for engineering controls during project budget management,

  • kinds of scientist stakeholders and the context of their working world,  

  • how scientists think and speak about the built environment they work in,  

  • how to engage in positive ways with scientist stakeholders during project scoping.