Tom Barton Award winner champions a ‘No Fault Forward’ approach
27 Aug 26
Samantha Ratcliffe, head of quality for AtkinsRéalis’s Transportation business, won the 2026 Tom Barton Award at the ICE Awards for her innovative approach to improving quality across the business. From transforming digital tools and embedding Lean principles to making quality more engaging and encouraging greater openness around mistakes, Sam has championed a proactive approach designed to identify and prevent problems before they become costly errors.
Removing barriers
Much of Sam’s work has focused on making it easier for people to do the right thing, by removing barriers, improving the tools available to engineers, and finding ways to identify potential problems as early as possible.
One of her key contributions has been the evolution of AtkinsRéalis’s Project Assurance Tool (PAT), a long-standing business tool that centralises quality insights, capturing trends, identifying issues and supporting engineers.
“We can have thousands of projects on the go at once, and PAT gathers all the information from our quality checks and reviews in one place,” explains Sam. “However, it was clunky and slow to load, so the team and I have been working on making it more accessible and intuitive for users, and we also have other features in development.”
These developments include ensuring that design decisions are recorded in one location, improving traceability and helping the business make better decisions. “This will also enable experts to become involved in projects at an earlier stage to support our teams and deliver even better results for our clients.”
No fault forward
The focus on earlier intervention lies behind one of the key principles Sam has introduced across the business – No Fault Forward. This is inspired by a Lean Six Sigma manufacturing principle that aims to proactively identify and address errors as and when they happen, mitigating potential issues further down the line.
To put the principle into practice, Sam has developed a clear process for identifying opportunities for improvement at each delivery stage, highlighting the quality safeguards and tools available to busy project teams.
The approach also reflects her wider focus on continuous improvement. Using Lean approaches, she has worked to establish a baseline for performance and identify areas where improvements can be made. This has included value-stream mapping to drive out waste and enhance quality, using root cause analysis to derive real value from lessons learned, and encouraging engineers to find ways to do things better. “Every improvement should make it easier for good people to deliver great engineering.”
Putting quality on the agenda
Sam’s impact goes beyond individual tools and processes, however. Her award win also recognised the way she has made quality more accessible and ensured it remains a consistent priority for the wider business. This includes her work on the Transportation annual Excellence Strategy, which provides a regular focus for quality at leadership level and helps ensure that its priorities are cascaded throughout the business unit.
“Quality is fundamental to everything we do, so we’ve used this annual strategy to make it as engaging and practical as possible. We do ‘bottom-up’ quality, but we also work ‘top down’ ‒ getting that leadership buy-in is really important. It also ensures that quality features consistently at every level of the business.”
Changing the conversation
For Sam, however, embedding quality is not simply a matter of putting processes in place, and her approach to communication has helped turn quality from a technical requirement into something people want to engage with. “Getting the message across to colleagues has been one of my favourite aspects. I’ve used humour and pop culture references to communicate key messages and get people’s attention ‒ for example, Beyonce’s ‘to the left, to the left’ as a way to talk about moving quality conversations earlier in the project lifecycle – or to the left in the programme.”
As a result, Sam says the business has seen an uptick in the proactive identification of quality near misses. “I feel like we have also seen an increase in psychological safety around reporting risks and issues, which is so important. People are sharing more ideas and want to get more involved in quality.”
External engagement
Sam's influence also extends beyond AtkinsRéalis. Her nomination highlighted her work with clients, partners and the wider supply chain to share knowledge and improve quality across the sector. “It’s so important that we are all travelling in the same direction in terms of quality. I work closely with National Highways, and I am a member of their supply chain forum, where we meet with peers to share good practice and help everyone improve quality management and get better results.”
A shared achievement
Sam describes winning the Tom Barton Award as an incredible honour, and a win for the business as a whole. “It recognises an approach to quality that I’m genuinely passionate about. And while the award has my name on it, none of this work happens in isolation. Every improvement has come through collaboration with talented colleagues, project teams, clients and partners who have challenged ideas, shared experiences and been willing to try new approaches. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without the leadership, support and talent around me. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together, and excited about continuing to build a culture where quality enables great delivery rather than simply assuring it.”
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