Building our Resilience
From reductions in pollution to the return of wildlife1, we are getting a glimpse into what might happen if we take actions toward reducing our environmental impacts in the midst of this pandemic. While home energy consumption has gone up, as expected, it’s also clear that our patterns have shifted. Among other things, BC Hydro data confirms that we are sleeping in more2. As the days go on, we’re also seeing a flourishing of creative generosity and resources for our well-being3, not to mention a rise in sourdough bread baking.

Navigating new realities

At Prism, there is no “”business as usual”” as we adapt to COVID-19. From our Energy Team exploring ways to leverage virtual technology to conduct energy audits, to our Electrical Team getting our remote access humming so that our designers can continue to work on CAD drawings from home, we are all experimenting with ways to adapt. Not only have our meetings gone online, but facilitation by our Sustainability Team and our training courses have moved to online delivery as well. 

As we navigate these new realities, we continue to look for ways to ground ourselves and focus on what we do know. Building our resilience means cultivating our capacity to navigate change and uncertainty – as individuals, as a company, and as a community. With our focus on efficiency and sustainability, we can respond proactively to the vulnerabilities that this pandemic has surfaced, including how we design and monitor our building systems to be more resilient.

Desigining adaptive systems

Hamid Samani, Prism Senior Mechanical Engineer, shares some reflections on how COVID-19 is teaching us that we need to be more innovative in our design so that our systems are more adaptive to change in the surrounding environment. “Being a mechanical engineer and designing buildings’ mechanical services including HVAC, air and plumbing systems, our design can affect the occupant from the air that they breathe to the water they drink or consume for sanitary use.”

Samani says redundancy and adaptivity will be vital as equipment failure can happen at any time. Ensuring there is adequate redundancy in equipment in place to come online when operating equipment fails will be one key consideration going forward. To increase adaptivity, designs may include installing monitoring systems for air quality and filtration, and controls systems for more consistent and reliable response to changing conditions.

Acting now for the future

Many people are also drawing parallels from how we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and how we respond to other challenges like climate change. Climate change adaptation measures for buildings improve our overall comfort, safety and business continuity. They may include installing monitoring systems for air quality and filtration, and controls systems for more consistent and reliable response to changing conditions. As we carry out vulnerability risk assessments to identify critical equipment and processes to address, we are reminded to think broadly about the impact of these changes and how connected we are. The more resilient our buildings become, the more resilient our communities can be. 

Now more than ever, we have an opportunity to re-evaluate our building systems and create more robust infrastructure capable of responding to new challenges. Whether in the context of public health or climate change, prevention is better than cure4. It is more economical and safer to reduce our environmental footprint today rather than to figure out how to deal with the consequences of our inaction. We each have a role to play. We are grateful to be part of an industry with a long history of innovation and problem-solving, through collaboration and harnessing our collective wisdom and insight. 

Learning together

Have you experienced a renewed interest in increasing the adaptability and bolstering the resiliency of your systems?
We invite you to add your insights here and grow this conversation so that we can learn together.

 

Prism Embraces Quality Management Standards

Stephen Kooiman, Mechanical Team Leader at Prism Engineering, shares his thoughts on how company-wide quality management helps ensure quality is consistently applied across all Prism projects in the 2020 March/April issue of the INNOVATION magazine produced by Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia.

Excerpt:

FIRMS EMBRACE QUALITY MANAGEMENT STANDARDS

Alison MacLeod, P.Eng., of MacLeod Nine Consultants, Ltd.—a structural engineering consulting firm in the heart of picturesque Rossland, BC—says the quality management systems that her firm committed to through Engineers and Geoscientists BC’s Organization Quality Management (OQM) program is a way for her to raise the quality bar and help ensure she’s always delivering the best quality engineering for her clients.

“Engineering is all about planning, diligence, and documentation. [Quality standards] improves efficiency, and it’s good for projects. But it’s also good for my own confidence as an owner of a small company, that my firm meets or exceeds professional obligations,” she said.

The OQM Program is a voluntary certification program created by Engineers and Geoscientists BC that enables companies to demonstrate that they meet the quality management standards expected for professional engineers and geoscientists. Engineers and Geoscientists BC recently certified its 400th firm. To MacLeod, certification is assurance that she’s following top quality management practices, “I just I want to deliver the best quality product to my clients,” she says.

The voluntary OQM program for firms is serving as excellent groundwork for the quality management pillar of the forthcoming mandatory regulation of firms, as outlined in the new Professional Governance Act. Engineers and Geoscientists BC formed a task force on the regulation of firms, which proposed a model that includes three pillars: quality management, ethics, and professional development. The current OQM requirements will form the quality management pillar.

The current target date for implementation of this portion of the new Act is the summer of 2021.

To Stephen Kooiman, P.Eng., Principal and Mechanical Team Leader at Prism Engineering—a Burnaby-based firm that specializes in energy management, electrical and mechanical engineering, utility monitoring and sustainability consulting—OQM-style quality management is about instilling confidence in the quality of Prism’s work. “It’s like a commitment to owners that we’re serious about doing a good job,” he said. “We’re abiding by Engineers and Geoscientists BC standards, and not doing shortcuts based on price or speed.”

Kooiman says that company-wide quality management helps ensure quality is consistently applied across Prism projects. “Before, it was up to individual engineers,” he said, adding that consistency in this area means that staff can quickly onboard to almost any project at any time. “It definitely standardized [quality] across the company. Formalizing this was the biggest benefit, so everyone has a clear understanding, how we interpret the standards and what the expectation is.”

For more information on the upcoming requirements for the regulation of firms, visit egbc.ca/regulation-of-firms.

INNOVATION Mar-Apr 2020

COVID-19: Moving Forward

*Photo credit: Dylan Passmore/Flickr – Stanley Park, Vancouver, April 12, 2020

Living through an unprecedented pandemic means rising to the challenge, adapting to the unexpected, and hoping for the best for many of our team members. We asked a few Prism colleagues to share their thoughts on what they think will be different going forward.

“”I think everyone’s communication game will step up! In order to work effectively, we need to be clearer and more concise. I find myself being more intentional with my interactions these days. The implications of better communication and proven effectiveness while working remotely will hopefully lead to more flexible work options in the long-term. The flexibility can greatly reduce stress and improve productivity.””
–Lizz Hodgson, Energy Management Engineer (EIT)

 

 

“Organizations might be more likely to encourage working remotely as we all adapt and grow accustomed to meetings that can be held virtually. I am really hoping this doesn’t affect the personal relationships we cherish with our friends, families and colleagues.  I look forward to enjoying gatherings and celebrations once again after the worst is behind us.”
–Hamid Samani, Senior Mechanical Engineer 

 

 

 “There has been many challenges and much uncertainty over the last month for us, but it’s also been an opportunity for us to explore new, and hopefully, better ways of doing things. We’ve been streamlining internal office processes, experimenting with new ways of delivering services and thinking creatively about how we can help our clients navigate the current situation.

Thinking more broadly, I’m hoping that as a society we can use some of the lessons we are learning from this current global emergency and apply them to the next global challenge we need to face together: climate change. This could be a critical turning point for us to make the sometimes-uncomfortable-changes that are needed.”
–Sarah Smith, Sustainability Team Leader