Osama Ali is a Chartered Professional Engineer and Caterpillar’s Principal Advisor for product safety and compliance matters in the Australia-Pacific region. After completing Standards Australia’s Young Leaders Program (YLP) in 2015, Mr Ali became a panellist on the NEXTgen Program in 2021. Mr Ali presently chairs ME-063, Standards Australia’s technical committee for Earthmoving Equipment.

Mr Ali’s formative experiences have included product design and testing, product compliance management and technical advisory. These roles required him to interpret standards and eventually presented an opportunity to participate in forming standards specifically around earthmoving and mining equipment and electrical equipment in mines and quarries.

Mr Ali recounts that he felt lucky to be involved early on in his standards career, in Standards Australia’s Young Leaders Program in 2015 (now known as NEXTgen), “I initially heard about the program in a newsletter from Standards Australia, and a co-worker encouraged me to go for it. It was great advice as I truly believe it was an awesome program that really helped me develop the soft skills needed for standards development.”

After completing and benefitting so much from his own experience with Standards Australia’s Young Leaders Program, a strong focus for Mr Ali was to “give back” to the community that supported him in his early career.

In his capacity as a contributor to Standards Australia, he’s able to do this through his direct involvement in committee efforts. Mr Ali is also a strong advocate for bringing in the next generation of standards experts, most recently acting as a panellist on the NEXTgen 2021 Program.

“This program is a brilliant way into standards development and making a difference. To this day I still utilise my connections from the experience - I was partnered with Brandon Hitch (CEO of the Crane Industry Council of Australia) as my standards mentor and we continue to have an awesome mentor-mentee relationship 7 years later,” Mr Ali explained.

Mr Ali’s ongoing interest in being part of the work Standards Australia does is “not just due to the opportunity to make a difference, but also because of the people you meet and relationships you build. Standards development is volunteer work and I’m always humbled by the dedication of the folks who help write these industry consensus documents.”

Presently, Mr Ali chairs ME-063, Earthmoving Equipment, and is very active in the formation of standards for this sector. Over the last 18 months, the team in ME-063 has turned around a portfolio of 60 aged standards. The committee's three-pronged strategy has involved direct text ISO adoptions, modified ISO adoptions and a portfolio of unique Australian Standards and has set a Standards Australia record for the greatest number of standards published in a 12-month period (120), with more in the pipeline for 2022 and 2023.

Through this effort, the committee has reset the standards landscape for earthmoving equipment and the collective effort demonstrates a successful adaptation to a post Covid-19 era of standards collaboration.

“I am truly honoured to be recognised as a standards hero, but I must call out that this is the reflection of the work of a committee of people. I am a small piece of an amazing team and so it would be remiss to not mention these are efforts of everyone else and they deserve the recognition,” said Mr Ali

“Osama’s dedication, effort and enthusiasm for standards is wonderful to see and experience. His work with the ME-063 committee is nothing short of exceptional and we’re thrilled he had such a positive experience with the YLP and is so willing to offer his time and expertise to the next generation of standards members,” said Adrian O’Connell, Chief Executive Officer at Standards Australia.

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