In today's blog post we discuss the influence of the cultural/organisational element as part of the human factors and how it relates to the passive fire industry.

In this three-part series, we look at the human factors concept in relation to the passive fire protection industry, starting with a focus on the People/Individual.

We're experiencing an ever-increasing strain on the Earth’s limited resources and the impact of Covid-related restrictions on trade and production has shown how volatile the flow of materials is. New Zealand being an island faces its very own challenges when it comes to limited resources. We therefore want to encourage a paradigm shift in how we use building materials — being more aligned with our environment and the people we care for.

After thoroughly investigating the challenges of upgrading fire-separating elements we want to finish this series off by demonstrating how a tested and endorsed intumescent coating system embedded in an integrated approach is able to deliver a compliant, cost-effective, minimal waste solution.

In the first part of our series, we identified that fire-separating elements are often not installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions and therefore non-compliant. In this part we want to show that the issue we are facing is multi-levelled and encompasses much more than the structural problem that presents on the surface.

The industry is facing a massive hidden Passive Fire Protection problem which has surfaced with the investigation around leaky buildings. Across New Zealand standard plasterboard has been installed non-compliantly, which now leaves these buildings facing life safety compliance issues under the NZBC. In the first part of our series, we take a closer look at identifying the problem.