Rhodri is the Digital Assurance Group Leader with Frazer-Nash Consultancy. Rhodri has over 30 years of experience working with safety and mission critical systems in high hazard industries. Rhodri started as a control systems engineer before specialising in functional safety over 20 years ago. This led him into cyber security and more recently the use of AI and machine learning for autonomous and safety related systems. He is an experienced auditor and assessor having worked for both a maritime classification society and the UK Health and Safety Executive.
Rhodri has also been working on the application of AI for the through-life management of safety cases for both the defence and nuclear industries. In addition to this Rhodri has been working to define an AI governance and the assurance of autonomous systems.
Rhodri began working on pipeline control systems before moving to subsea ROVs and product burial systems for the telecoms and oil and gas industries. He worked for DNV for 11 years, 6 of those in Norway. His work at DNV involved safety assurance, certification, verification, compliance, technology risk management, supplier capability assessments and audits and failure and incident investigations.
Rhodri left DNV to join Aker Solutions as Principal Functional Safety Engineer, before joining the HSE as an Electrical, Control and Cyber Security Specialist Inspector. He worked in the Chemical, Explosives, Microbiological Hazards Division regulating COMAH sites. He was involved in the update of the HSE’s Operational Guidance for Cyber Security and Layer of Protection Analysis. He also contributed to the U.K. government’s whitepaper on AI regulation. He is an active member of the IET and is on their Digital Futures Policy Panel.
He is an expert member of several BSI and IEC international standards committees for functional safety (IEC 61508, IEC 61511) and cyber security (IEC 62443). He is also a member of the IEC /ISO SC 42 committee responsible for developing joint ISO/IEC standards for Functional Safety and Artificial Intelligence and the use of machine learning and AI components in safety relevant functions.