Challenges when enhancing the infrastructure - Case studies

The fundamental rational of the German way to ensure structural safety and to prevent the society from undue harm is independent design review and execution supervision. This paper will explain both regarding the way in which review and supervision are performed, as well as the qualification needed for the design and supervision review engineer, who acts as a trustee of the public administration. The development of the review and supervision regime and of the underlying set of technical rules and regulations will be addressed by discussing actual and historic case studies. Special emphasis will be put on the interface-problems when different parties are involved and on the necessity of good and reliable coordination mechanisms between the involved parties. As a consequence of the increasing fragmentation of the design process in combination with the use of complex software tools and inevitable time pressure often the integrated design review process is the last line of defence to avoid incidents due to minor lapses or serious misjudgements.