Osama is a chartered professional engineer and Caterpillar’s technical advisor for product safety and compliance matters in the Australia-Pacific region. 

His formative experiences have included product design and development, product compliance management, and testing and validation of earth-moving equipment. 

Osama presently chairs the Construction and Mining Equipment Industry Group (CMEIG) Engineering Working Group and ME-063 (Standards Australia Technical Committee for Earthmoving Equipment).

When and why did you become involved with standards development?
I first got involved in standards through my role as a compliance engineer – developing and conducting tests for earthmoving machines based on Australian and ISO standards. 

This required me to interpret standards and helped me identify some areas for improvement. A subsequent opportunity presented itself to get involved in drafting some of those standards, and the rest is history.

I was also lucky to be involved in Standards Australia’s Young Leaders Program in 2015 (now known as NEXTgen). This was a brilliant program that helped me develop some of the soft skills needed to be an effective participant.

How do standards impact your industry?
I believe the construction and mining industries collectively represent ~20% of Australian GDP so these industries are very important to us. And safe operation of earthmoving machinery is essential for the success of these industries.

Having a comprehensive set of contemporary standards helps by providing a clear understanding of what is expected, instilling confidence to stakeholders, and acting as a documented benchmark of what may be considered as industry best practice.

Standards give the construction and mining industry ‘a common language’, enabling stakeholders to communicate and assess earthmoving machinery safety expectations.

On a more personal level, I really enjoy being part of a diverse group of industry stakeholders coming together and collectively solving industry problems through standardisation.

What is the future of standardisation in your area of work?
In terms of the standards portfolio covered by ME-063 (Earth-moving Equipment), I think that portfolio will likely evolve to reflect a rapidly increasing level of technology implementation and the transition to electrification / alternative energy powertrains.

To facilitate this future, there’s already supporting standards work in various stages (completed, in-development, at a concept stage) but something that will likely continue to evolve.

Things like taking an operator out of the machine and automating machine functions, incorporating new technologies or functionalities, or changing from a diesel engine to a rechargeable battery and electric motors – all these transitions will benefit from a strong standards development strategy and there is no shortage of work to do in these areas.

At a committee level, I think we will continue to see a need for a high level of collaboration from industry, likely leveraging some of the new digital tools and platforms we’ve become comfortable with over COVID. What we may also see is a new mix of stakeholders and skillsets engaged to ensure we continue to have contemporary standards to support the aforementioned evolution.