ABSTRACT
The proliferation of disasters and industrial crises in recent times should raise questions in the minds of senior managers regarding their own organisation’s preparedness for such an eventuality.
What are causes of industrial crises?
What are the threats or risks facing the organisation?
How likely are they?
How severe would the consequences be:
for the safety and health of employees and the public?
for the environment?
for the organisation, in terms of:
legal liability?
corporate identity, reputation and image?
profits and employment?
How can these risks be avoided?
How can the possible consequences be minimised?
Recent research at SRD has endeavoured to address these questions. A number of disasters in a wide variety of socio-technical systems have been examined and their causes analysed with the aid of a systems model. The conclusion is now well accepted that disasters cannot be viewed as the result of a single failure (such as the signal re-wiring failure that led to the Clapham Junction rail disaster), but have multiple root causes that lie much deeper within the socio-technical system.
395These underlying causal factors have been thoroughly explored in SRD’s research and drawn together into four key dimensions that contribute to industrial crises. These are:
external environmental forces
internal organisational factors
changes in dynamic systems
human response issues.
This analysis has highlighted:
the important role that individuals and management play in the safe operation of complex socio-technical systems
the potential effect of factors external to the system on system operation and on the results of system decisions
the dangers of not fully evaluating the consequences of changes to the system and its environment over time.
