Ben Fulford
Ben Fulford is on a mission to modernise safety engineering by rebuilding the tools, processes and training it runs on. The field still works with methods from another era. Hazard logs are static records with no model of how hazards, causes and controls connect. Review processes assume a person can check every line. Competence is evidenced by attendance certificates and taught through slides. Fix those, and AI can be used where it earns its place.
He has over 15 years in functional safety across defence, maritime, nuclear, aerospace and automotive: safety manager on the Astute-class submarine Platform Management System, developed to SIL2, and Independent Safety Auditor on radar, software and autonomous programmes.
On the tools, he was lead author of the AI-HAZOP paper presented at the Safety-Critical Systems Symposium. He has since built a HAZOP tool that models the system as a knowledge graph, validates every output mechanically and traces each claim to its evidence; a paper follows in 2027. He also wrote Effectiveness of Controls, which brings cybersecurity into safety assurance.
On processes, he works on how human oversight and AI judges should be designed when a tool produces more output than anyone can review, and on measuring whether a new method is better.
On training, he designed BMT's prompt engineering programme, also sold externally, and a senior leadership AI programme.
He sits on the SCSC Security-Informed Safety Working Group, writes Modernising Safety Engineering, a fortnightly Substack, and speaks on AI adoption in regulated industries, including an SCSC keynote. For AI adoption training, safety workflow redesign or a speaker: get in touch. BEng (Hons) Aerospace Engineering, Manchester. CEng MIET.