Case USA87: Why a Federal Safety Bureau Substituted Risk Audit Templates for Enterprise Architecture Coherence
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- Aug 11
- 2 min read
Overview:
This case is part of a 100-diagnostic series revealing how US regulatory and safety agencies have mislabeled procedural tools as “Enterprise Architecture progress.”
In federal safety oversight, a recurring pattern is treating standardized risk audit templates as proof of enterprise coherence.
Audit cycles were faster, inspection forms were digitized, and compliance reports were more consistent — yet the enterprise structure linking hazard identification, enforcement actions, incident response, and cross-agency coordination was never modeled.
P1–P6 Insight Preview:
These six perspectives define how an enterprise connects intent to execution
— P1: Strategy, P2: Business Processes, P3: System Behaviors, P4: Component Governance, P5: Implementation, P6: Business & Technology Operations.
P1 (Strategy): Audit standardization was positioned as a safety transformation, but no architecture-led plan linked it to measurable risk reduction or systemic prevention outcomes.
P2 (Process): Inspection processes were documented and repeatable, but escalation to enforcement and remediation was inconsistent.
P3 (System): Audit templates weren’t behaviorally integrated with case management, incident tracking, or regulatory databases.
P4 (Component): Forms, reporting tools, and workflow modules operated under separate governance with overlapping rules.
P5 (Implementation): Rollouts focused on distributing templates quickly, deferring systemic process redesign.
P6 (Operations): Business ops processed audits faster, but tech ops managed manual data reconciliation and multiple reporting silos.
Stakeholder Impact Summary:
CEO/Agency Director – accountable for safety outcomes and regulatory credibility: Limited by weak P1 Strategy — audit volume and speed improved, but accident and hazard rates remain unchanged.
CIO – responsible for systems and compliance data flow: Impacted by P3 System Behaviors and P4 Component Governance — critical safety data is fragmented, slowing systemic analysis.
Sales Head (Stakeholder Liaison) – manages industry and inter-agency relationships: Affected by P2 Processes and P5 Implementation — can show procedural efficiency but struggles to demonstrate outcome-based improvement.
Chief Enterprise Architect – ensures architecture supports mission execution: Confronts P1–P6 issues — the system is optimized for audits, not for an integrated safety ecosystem.
Head of Field Inspection – oversees daily inspection and audit work: Feels P2, P3, & P6 — still manually links inspection results to corrective actions and follow-ups.
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