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July 11, 2010

BP Oil Spill - an interesting take

I read an interesting article in Forbes.com where the writer mentions the following:
"The job of senior executives (or politicians and regulators) is to think the unthinkable. While few risks truly justify a "never failing" attitude, those that do should follow my five reliability principles:
1. Multiple things must line up before failure can occur (catastrophic failures are extremely rare).
2. Junior management error is the most frequent root cause. Why protect against something that probably won't happen?
3. Very carefully control configuration changes. In BP's case the drilling rig was being disconnected at the time of explosion.
4. Look for unintended interactions between adjacent systems. For instance, unexpected freezing conditions prevented the first BP well cap from working.
5. Be very, very careful toward the very end of long-term projects. On the day of the BP explosion plaques were being distributed to employees for seven years of uninterrupted safety".

Point number 2 in which the writer mentions that Junior management error is the most frequent cause is linked to organisational culture. With the Indian workforce becoming younger and younger, I observe a shift in the Plant manager's perception of risk. They are becoming more blind to risk due to inexperience and lack of training, and conflicting signals from top management (Top management talks about safety but does not back up its actions with resources). A recipe for disaster!
Read the full article in this link.

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