SRCN, a team of highly regarded experts with extensive experience across the energy and utility sectors, recently delivered a guest lecture to engineering students at The Robert Gordon University (RGU) on work
management and backlog reduction. The session explored the universal challenge of maintenance backlog, a topic of critical importance to high-reliability industries such as nuclear energy.

Drawing on SRCN’s experience developing the industry guidelines on backlog management commissioned by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), the lecture introduced principles of work management. It focused on how effective work management frameworks can help organisations maintain safe, predictable and compliant operations, principles that apply equally to the nuclear sector.

To make the concept tangible, SRCN used its signature “bathtub” analogy, illustrating how the inflow of new work (demand), the current backlog (the water level), and the outflow (execution capacity) interact dynamically. This analogy helped students visualise the system behaviour that underpins maintenance performance and risk exposure.

“The issue of backlog is not confined to one sector; it’s a universal indicator of how well an organisation manages competing priorities, available capacity and asset integrity,” said Colin Wilson, Founder and
Managing Director, SRCN. “Whether you’re operating an offshore platform or a nuclear facility, backlog management is central to maintaining safety, compliance and long-term reliability.”

The lecture formed part of SRCN’s ongoing mission to share practical, cross-industry learning with the next generation of engineers and leaders. By translating operational insights into simple, teachable models, SRCN aims to strengthen the bridge between academic study and the real-world challenges of work management in safety-critical environments.

#SRCN/Articles