Busy fall for RiskLogik as resilience becomes a keyword for governments and companies

By Bill Brough RiskLogik has a number of important presentations and mentoring engagements this fall that underline the momentum of "The resilience company" and its relevance to protecting the critical assets and organizational value of governments and companies.

On September 15th, RiskLogik Vice President Rory Kilburn is briefing the 2^nd Chief Strategy Officer course in Toronto hosted by Federated Press with a presentation entitled “Avoiding Strategic Planning Failures”.

Between September 28 and 29th, RiskLogik is sponsoring the Conference Board of Canada’s Intergovernmental Forum on Risk Management in Toronto. RiskLogik CEO Nick Martyn is giving a plenary talk entitled “Resilience or Compliance? Setting the Appropriate Goal for Effective Risk Management” at 1:00 pm on the 28th.

On October 15th, RiskLogik CEO Nick Martyn is attending the Sandford Fleming Forum on Resilience of Commercial Property to Climate Change being held at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Resilience of Critical Infrastructure (CRCI).

And between October 26th and November 17th, RiskLogik Principal and COO Charles Chamberlain is teaching Project Management at the University of Toronto for the course CIV460 Engineering Project and Finance Management (7 lectures).

If you are at any of these presentations or lectures, please come and talk to us. We'd love to hear about your path to creating resilient communities and companies.

Drive down fuel costs, create smarter drivers and put cash in your pocket with DriveLogik

By Dean Richardson DriveLogik, a sister division to RiskLogik, is launching a new product today that offers truck and other large vehicle fleets a driver-focused fix that brings significant relief from high fuel costs with a 6%-10% reduction in fuel consumption, plus maintenance savings, increased vehicle longevity and a lower carbon footprint.

Fleet managers can estimate fuel savings with our online calculator at www.drivelogik.com. A long haul truck using DriveLogik and driving 180,000 kms/112,000 miles per year can save an average of $5,500 dollars a year. Expand that across a fleet of 50 trucks, and the savings are a dramatic $275,000 per year of cash-in-pocket results.

Now available in North America, DriveLogik combines hardware with a proven track record on more than 250,000 fleet vehicles in Europe, and TrackLogik software from RiskLogik. The dash-mounted DriveLogik Driver Assistance Panel (DAP) coaches each driver in real time, encouraging improved driving techniques. It gives each driver visual and audible notifications on critical performance indicators without being intrusive. Data analysis and reporting encourages drivers and fleet managers to work together on perfecting driving styles.

DriveLogik provides meaningful and actionable insights and statistics for the benefit of the business as a whole.

Substantial savings on fuel are of course extremely important, but DriveLogik also creates fleet-wide awareness of optimal driving habits  – a “cascade of consequences” from using the product that also leads to longer-lasting trucks. DriveLogik is about a bigger fleet management success story, and as former fleet manager, that's what I find so exciting.

While the U.S. pressures the North American trucking industry with stricter fuel efficiency standards, DriveLogik offers fleets an immediate solution.

DriveLogik is a $1999 hardware package and $59-per-month for the software reporting service that includes driver performance reports to help identify who needs more coaching, who deserves recognition, and customized instant alerts via mobile devices to identify major driving events.

DriveLogik hardware benefits include:

• Easy to use, requires no maintenance
• Provides instant feedback through Driver Awareness Panel (DAP)
• Promotes smarter driving, saves fuel, reduces CO2
• Reduces truck maintenance costs, increases vehicle longevity
• Works with all major truck brands
• Productivity and efficiency for your entire fleet

TrackLogik software benefits include:

• Daily, weekly and monthly summary reporting customized by   driver, by truck, by entire fleet, and more
• Customized instant alerts via mobile device for major driving event
• Driver performance reports identify who needs more coaching, and who deserves recognition
• Annual scorecard reports identify trends and productivity achievements
• Vehicle tracking to pinpoint any lost or stolen vehicles
• A wide range of additional fleet tracking and management services

DriveLogik is a business division of Deep Logic Solutions Inc. It is also a sister business division to RiskLogik www.risklogik.com, which delivers a suite of Enterprise Resilience Software and services to governments and industries, including the transportation sector. On the Web, please go to www.drivelogik.com.

Dean Richardson is Director of Fleet Applications at DriveLogik. Contact him at  +1 (613) 688-5078 ext. 511 or dean.richardson@drivelogik.com

New approach on risk analysis offers improved rail safety

By Nick Martyn Recent events in Canada’s rail transport network have prompted a much-needed national debate about the risks of energy transport and rail safety. No matter our personal stance regarding climate change, we all live in an oil dependant society and until we find another way to power the global economy and our civil society, oil and gas will have to move from where it is found to where it is used. In Canada that largely means it will move either via pipeline or rail. But when a pipeline leaks or oil tankers derail, the risks of oil transit are thrown into stark relief; especially for the residents of communities in the immediate vicinity and the ecosystems affected.

Broadly speaking risk is thought of as the “possibility of loss.” It is generally viewed as the combination of the likelihood of loss and the consequences of that loss. Likelihood, otherwise known as the “probability of occurrence”, is the foundation of actuarial science; which underpins the insurance industry. Probability suggests that if historical trends continue and the future cooperates with the past, then the likelihood of something occurring can be calculated to a sufficient degree that insurance against the event could be issued with a reasonable chance that it would not have to be paid. In essence a bet is laid against the event. If the event occurs then the insurer has to pay out. If it does not then the insurer makes money.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada declared 2013 the worst year on record for insurance related payouts, meaning that insurers will pay out a lot of money because the future did not cooperate with the past and the unlikely happened. The object lesson here is that while likelihood is interesting, consequences are costly.

As we seek export markets for Canadian energy products, so the volume of those products in transit increases. Eric Sprott, the renowned Canadian resource investor notes in his January 27, 2014 newsletter that by the end of 2013 Canada's rail industry was shipping 375,000 barrels of oil per day and that figure is expected to each 900,000 barrels per day by the end of 2014. A decade ago 500 barrels per day were shipped on Canada's  rail lines. As for a pipeline, Sprott believes the Energy East pipeline will get the go-ahead and will increase Canada’s export capacity by 800,000 barrels. Since Canada has not added significantly to its pipeline infrastructure in decades, there is little choice but to ship it via the rail network, which coincidentally has not been significantly increased in decades. When both the nature and the volume of rail traffic increases on a network that has not appreciably increased in size or capability the “likelihood” of failure events also increases, as do the consequences.

To date consequence has been considered somewhat subjective and therefore less quantifiable than likelihood, partly because each stakeholder sees consequence differently. For instance the Mayor of a community thinks of the consequence of a train derailment and spill in the community in a much different way than the CEO of the rail company or the owner of the shipment. The cold hard reality is that no matter how small the statistical likelihood that derailments will happen, the consequences when derailments happen are significant. As events increase in frequency and it seems severity, it is clearly time to rethink our evaluation of risk in rail transport.

While the probability that a train-load of inappropriately classified oil products would careen down a hill in rural Quebec and explode, killing 47 people and contaminating a fragile lake ecosystem was so infinitesimally small as to be almost incalculable, the consequences were devastating and will be felt for generations. The policies that drive rail system regulation (or any system for that matter) are driven by the likelihood of a failure not the consequences. In part this is because it is difficult to foresee every event and frame a regulation to prevent it, but also because the risk analysis techniques to quantify consequence in a useful way, to date, have not existed.

Risk analysis techniques have improved markedly in recent years, to the point that networked risk analysis tools can fathom the pathways of exposure to risk in models containing thousands of entities. Given the complexity and importance of the energy transport question in Canada and the severe and sometimes tragic consequences of failure, it seems time to revisit the question of energy transport risk with modern tools so that no matter which side of the energy debate we stand on, we have a safer, cleaner Canada to live in and to pass on to our children.

Before founding RiskLogik, CEO Nick Martyn held various command and staff appointments in both the Canadian and British Armies over 27 years of military service. RiskLogik provides risk and resilience solutions.

Resilience will displace performance as an ITI system design driver

By NIck Martyn Increasingly IT systems sit at the centre of our critical infrastructure (CI) networks. Systems Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems control much of the critical infrastructure essential to public safety and economic prosperity. During Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, the extreme weather effects associated with climate change wreaked havoc on information technology infrastructure (ITI).

The consequences were staggering. Over 300 dead in hospitals in New Orleans because back-up power was lost under water, causing life support systems to fail and billions of dollars were lost on the New York Stock Exchange because the server room flooded and trading was interrupted for a week.

In a growing number of disruptive events we see that ITI is itself becoming a critical CI node; vulnerable to upstream effects such as the loss of electrical power or water for cooling and propagating that vulnerability to all its downstream dependencies. We have to re-think how SCADA systems and the ITI platforms they occupy are sited and protected from upstream environmental effects and how all the downstream functions that depend on them are backed up or we risk cascading consequences from which we may not be able to recover easily.

This requires a major re-think of our ITI with a focus on resilience not just performance. Minimum viable systems that can survive and recover from disruptive events are preferable to high performance systems that fail. There is a cost, but also a benefit. Resilient communities and nations are the right places to locate businesses and that fosters greater prosperity.

(NIck Martyn is CEO of RiskLogik)

General (Ret) Rick Hillier appointed to RiskLogik Board of Advisors while Ottawa tech entrepreneur Bob Huggins joins as Chairman

Nick Martyn, Founder and CEO of RiskLogik, provider of risk and resilience solutions to public and private sector organizations, is honoured to welcome two new members to his advisory and executive teams – General (Ret) Rick Hillier and Ottawa digital media entrepreneur Bob Huggins.General (Ret) Rick Hillier, the former Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces, joins RiskLogik’s Board of Advisors to contribute his strategic vision, his insights on leadership and relationship-building, and his global contacts in the private and military sectors.

In 1998, as Commander 2 CMBG, General Hillier led Operation Recuperation, the Canadian Forces’ intervention in the ice storm in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. He went on to command the Multinational Division (Southwest) in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was named Chief of the Land Staff, commanding the Canadian Army in 2003. He commanded the NATO ISAF in Afghanistan in 2004, and in 2005 General Hillier was appointed Chief of the Defence Staff. General Hillier is noted for his dedication to the defence of Canada, for which he won the Vimy award in 2008, and his public calls for increased resources and funding for the Canadian Forces. Today he participates on the boards of several corporations as well as dozens of charitable and not-for-profit organizations.

Bob Huggins, an established Ottawa technology entrepreneur, joins RiskLogik as Chairman to help scale the company’s technology and guide its strategic sales, marketing and investment strategies. Huggins sold his company, PaperOfRecord.com, a pioneer in the digitization of historical newspaper images and other historical image documents, to Google Inc. in 2008.

Huggins has also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Invest Ottawa, and prior to that, at the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI). His independent historical documentary film company, OrphanBoyFilms, will feature his work as Producer/Director in a upcoming film. Called “The Greatest Freedom Show On Earth”, the film explores Windsor and Detroit’s role in Canada’s Underground Railroad that led to the emancipation of black slaves in the United States. TVO is slated to broadcast the documentary in early 2014.

“I am both humbled and thrilled to have General Hillier and Bob Huggins working on behalf of RiskLogik”, said Martyn, whose company in based West of Ottawa in the town of Almonte, ON. “Climate change, technological transformation, political upheaval and malicious acts all disrupt economies and societies with increasing magnitude and frequency. With the help of these two new leaders, RiskLogik will dramatically accelerate its ability to help public and private sector decision-makers and managers adapt to this changing world by increasing their capacity to anticipate, survive and recover from these inevitable risks.”

“I have had several of RiskLogik’s executive team under my command in their former lives as military officers,” said General Hillier. “Understanding risk and how to mitigate it is something we have achieved in some of the world’s toughest operating conditions. The opportunity to now work with them in the private sector is a privilege that I trust will yield great results for this emerging company.”

“Last year Invest Ottawa identified RiskLogik as a Rising Star Portfolio company,” said Huggins. “This is the best of the best of Ottawa’s start-ups. As I prepare to leave Invest Ottawa at the end of this month after four years of mentoring startups, I can’t think of a better company to be involved with as Chairman. RiskLogik has the talent, technology, track record with customers, and desire to win. I’ll do everything I can to guide this promising company’s growth and success.”

RiskLogik forms the core risk discovery, analysis and mitigation methodology public sector leaders and private sector executives alike can rely on to manage organizational risk. At an operational level, RiskLogik provides the modeling and simulation tools that managers rely on to develop and test risk scenarios and understand the potential consequences of their risk mitigation plans before invoking them.

RiskLogik employs geospatial intelligence, advanced proprietary risk analysis software and modeling techniques, and proven risk mitigation methodologies to deliver a full spectrum risk management service to their clients. The RiskLogik professional services team has successfully delivered a critical infrastructure resilience model for the Province of Ontario, visualized the consequences of multi-project risk for the executives of Caterpillar Inc., and delivered systems and services to manage reconstruction in Afghanistan. The RiskLogik team is now building Canada’s national critical infrastructure resilience model as part of a three-year project with Public Safety Canada.

About RiskLogik

RiskLogik is a business division of Deep Logic Solutions Inc. With roots that go back to Canada’s Y2K response by the Department of National Defence and Public Works Canada, RiskLogik is dedicated to delivering comprehensive risk discovery, analysis and mitigation solutions. On the Web, please go to www.risklogik.com

Risk management as sense making

By Rory Kilburn Big data is getting all the press these days and analytics are becoming the accepted way to look into the future. However, the use of analytics assumes that the future will unfold on a linear path from the past. We know from hard experience that this is almost never true. It may be true in the immediate future (30 to 90 days), but once you stretch into looking out a year or more, big data is less useful for forecasting. The key focus for risk managers is that they not try and predict the future; rather, it is to make sense of the data.

Polynesians, on their long voyages, used wayfinders to make sense of the data they had. The wayfinders brought the recognition of patterns of waves, the meaning of clouds, and the knowledge of birds and fish to point at the presence of land, shoals, or safe waters. It is a matter of knowing the environment, and what small indicators mean in the larger eco-system. They made sense of the data that was gathered during the voyage.

Making sense of data by converting it into usable information, and then taking it even further into discoverable knowledge, is what separates companies into leaders and also-rans.

So What?

Taking this back to a business context, it means taking cues from events in the marketplace, and using big data and the cues to understand what it means to your company.

By using advanced analytical tools and modeling software, and incorporating scenario planning into risk management, organizations are able to forecast how risk events will propagate through the company. The tools give you insight into the impact of an event on your operations and those of your clients. Risk management planning then becomes more than single event mitigation. Instead, it becomes readiness to address the cascading consequences of a single event, and therefore setting plans in motion to create a system that is resilient in the face of multiple shocks.

Planning for a future based on a linear extrapolation is hindsight. It makes you an armchair quarterback. Planning for a future based on multiple cascading failures needs insight.

RiskLogik lets you make sense of the patterns emerging from your business environment, and gives you the insight necessary to build a resilient system.

(Rory Kilburn is Vice President – Risk & Resilience Solutions, RiskLogik)

Battle-hardened risk analysis software uses geospatial intelligence to deliver superior benefits

From geospatial intelligence to protecting critical infrastructure from terrorism and natural disasters, Deep Logic Solutions transforms risk management with proprietary technology and extensive experience.

Corporate profile

Whether it’s reducing the impacts of a terrorist attack, mapping Canada’s Arctic seabed using advanced satellite technology, breaking up a vehicle smuggling operation in Afghanistan, or helping a major equipment manufacturer meet complex compliance deadlines, Deep Logic Solutions Inc. advances risk analysis and project management far beyond conventional practices.

The company’s advanced software pinpoints vulnerabilities in complex risk environments and helps implement action plans with military-grade precision. In fact three of the company’s four products have been battle-hardened during deployments in Afghanistan.

“We are a decision support company. We help leaders make better decisions, be more competitive and create more value. Our core product, called RiskOutLook®, is the best risk analysis system on the market . It can identify and analyze an unlimited number and complexity of risk factors and expose what drives those risks. Our other solutions then work together to provide decisive action,” says Nick Martyn, CEO and founder of Deep Logic Solutions.

RiskOutLook® enables contingency planners, risk mangers and CEOs to identify and visualize the pathways of risk exposure. This leads to decisions that will help save lives, protect infrastructure or create greater value for an enterprise.

RiskOutLook has its genesis in Canada’s preparations for Y2K. Planners were able to focus preventative measures on areas of critical importance, thus preventing any catastrophes. “For us the silence of New Year’s morning 2000 was the sweet sound of success,” says Martyn.

Why Ottawa

“Invest Ottawa is simply a brilliant investment of tax dollars. Canada is a nation of great talent and astounding innovation, but we are not yet universally great entrepreneurs. The programs at Invest Ottawa turn innovators into successful entrepreneurs that can export to the world and in so doing build a stronger economy here at home,” says Martyn.

“The Market Intelligence and Business Analysis Service at Invest Ottawa gave us direction and focus and assisted us in making key strategic decisions,” adds Martyn. As a member of the Invest Ottawa Business Acceleration program Martyn is impressed with the concentration of skills and the quality of the Invest Ottawa experts who have done it all before and provide the benefits of their real-world experience.

“We could have established Deep Logic anywhere, but the technical and management talent pool in the Ottawa region is deep and the support from Invest Ottawa is phenomenal so we decided to base ourselves here,” says Martyn, “We expect the company’s expansion will rely on excellent human resources.”

Business advantage

The Deep Logic Solutions suite is comprised of four products, each one addressing a core issue. They can be deployed alone or in combination to provide a complete program management solution.

RiskOutLook® is the world’s most advanced risk analysis software delivering the risk intelligence that determines success or failure. It includes a full risk mitigation simulator that models the effects of actions before implementing any plans

Proteus uses multi-spectral satellite imagery to provide advanced geospatial intelligence about project areas. Clients learn more about the project physical environment, avoid risks and leverage opportunities increasing their competitiveness and delivering more value.

NeXus addresses the need for program Intelligence with real time global monitoring of project progress. Nexus uses geospatial intelligence and best practices in project, program and portfolio management to deliver precise project control and improved program data

Bastion delivers intelligence on mission critical assets including human resources, remote sensors, aircraft and vehicles on a single platform. Bastion integrates any tracking device on the market today and also integrates with NeXus and Proteus to provide precision project and program management.

Future growth plans

Deep Logic Solutions is planning for rapid growth in 2013 as it further evolves RiskOutLook®. The firm is working with the federal Defence R&D Canada – Centre for Security Science, which in partnership with Public Safety Canada takes a lead role in providing science and technology for Canada’s safety and security priorities.

The Canadian Federal Government is investing more than $800,000 in RiskOutLook® to analyze the supply chain risks in the provinces of New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. Public Safety Canada is using RiskOutLook® to examine the risks to Canada’s critical infrastructure.

In Ontario, Canada’s largest province, the Ontario Emergency Management organization has used RiskOutLook® since 2008 to manage its critical infrastructure risks.

Quote

We help leaders make better decisions and create more value. Our core product, RiskOutLook®, is the best risk analysis system on the market today. It can identify and analyze an unlimited number and complexity of risk factors and expose what drives those risks. Our other solutions address the risks that RiskOutLook® identifies. – Nick Martyn, CEO and founder, Deep Logic Solutions Inc.

Looking at risk differently

By Rory Kilburn There are several definitions of risk out there. For example:

• From The Oxford Paperback Dictionary – Risk is the possibility of meeting danger or suffering harm; exposure to this, or
• From www.businessdictionary.com – A probability or threat of damage, injury, liability, loss, or any other negative occurrence that is caused by external or internal vulnerabilities, and that may be avoided through pre-emptive action, or
• From ISO 31000 – Risk is the impact of uncertainty on objectives

All this is to say that risk has many definitions, and one can say that the definition of risk is often contextual. There is personal or physical risk, financial or economic risk, and reputational risk, all of which can have an impact on an enterprise and its people.

However, risk is essentially a human construct. It is personal – and impacts most on the person who is held accountable for the risk. The impact can be personal in injury to the body or reputation, or financial in the loss of assets or money. In all walks of life, we make decisions to attain – or move towards – objectives, all the while keeping in mind the risks that the decisions may avoid or bring upon us. One often hears the refrain “If I had known then what I know now, I would have done things differently.”

Risk, then, is really the impact of uncertainty on decisions. And Risk Management should be about giving decision-makers at all levels the tools to make an informed decision with confidence.

So What?

So how can one help decision-makers know then (before the decision) what they know now (long after the decision? There is always uncertainty with decision-making; we can almost never reduce uncertainty to zero. The aim of a decision support tool should then be to reduce uncertainty to a point where the decision-maker has the confidence to make an effective choice.

That is what RiskLogik does.

RiskLogik has the people, the processes and the tools to give you the decision support you deserve. If you are a decision-maker, and you want to learn how to reduce uncertainty, then contact us.

(Rory Kilburn is Vice President – Risk & Resilience Solutions, RiskLogik)