he COVID-19 Coronavirus contagion is sweeping borders, causing a lockdown in many countries of the world, a meltdown in the global economic machinery and the isolation of societies.  Dubbed a “global pandemic” by the World Health Organization, the virus has cut a swathe of destruction, infecting millions of lives and accounting for tens of thousands of deaths.  A broad spectrum of the distressed world economy has been brought to a standstill, causing distressed companies untold losses.

Standard personal care and hygiene recommendations have been put forward by the CDC and the WHO to help contain the spread of COVID-19 infections.  Together with government actions and administrative and medical measures, our Principal Consultant, in collaboration with our partner CGE Risk Management Solutions of the Netherlands, has developed the bowtie model that maps out these elements of control and mitigation thus affording a greater visualization of the current risk scenario, from the perspective of a typical organization affected by the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak:

Unlike the conventional spreadsheet-based hazard or risk register, the diagram shows very clearly the mechanisms of unwanted events and all the inter-relationships between the elements of the risk scenario.  Furthermore, the adequacy of barriers (control and mitigation measures) could be easily determined.

The diagram is populated with the normal Bowtie entities only, serving as a template for organizations intending to curtail the COVID-19 risk. Customization of the COVID-19 Bowtie will be necessary to ensure that

• the basic elements are applicable to your organisation (e.g. threats, consequences, controls, escalation factors and escalation factor controls). These would be need to be reviewed and modified as appropriate through workshops facilitated by our consultant;
• the essential features to ensure effective barrier management such as persons responsible/accountable for controls, control effectiveness and criticality etc. are reviewed and modified as appropriate.

The workshops will require the participants to use the BowTieXP software.  To enable this, trial licenses for a limited duration will be issued to participants.

Objectives

To assist organizations wishing to adopt the Bowtie technique, more specifically the COVID-19 Bowtie template, for the management of their COVID-19 risks, we are offering a full-day (public or in-house) workshop with the objectives of help participants to

• gain an awareness and understanding of risk management principles and the Bowtie Methdology;
• understand the loss causation/prevention principles that underlays the concept of barrier-based risk management;
• acquire hands-on experience in performing Bowtie analysis and developing Bowtie models;
• gain a firm grasp of the essential requirements of barrier management, and;
• customize the COVID-19 Bowtie template to suit their respective organizations.

Methodology

• Interactive Learning
• Real Case Studies
• Worked Exercises
• Q&A Session