Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.
The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.
Amazon.com Review: Hang a curtain too close to a fireplace and you run the risk of setting your house ablaze. Drive a car on a pitch-black night without headlights, and you dramatically increase the odds of smacking into a tree.
These are matters of common sense, applied to simple questions of cause and effect. But what happens, asks systems-behavior expert Charles Perrow, when common sense runs up against the complex systems, electrical and mechanical, with which we have surrounded ourselves? Plenty of mayhem can ensue, he replies. The Chernobyl nuclear accident, to name one recent disaster, was partially brought about by the failure of a safety system that was being brought on line, a failure that touched off an unforeseeable and irreversible chain of disruptions; the less severe but still frightening accident at Three Mile Island, similarly, came about as the result of small errors that, taken by themselves, were insignificant, but that snowballed to near-catastrophic result.
Only through such failures, Perrow suggests, can designers improve the safety of complex systems. But, he adds, those improvements may introduce new opportunities for disaster. Looking at an array of real and potential technological mishaps--including the Bhopal chemical-plant accident of 1984, the Challenger explosion of 1986, and the possible disruptions of Y2K and genetic engineering--Perrow concludes that as our technologies become more complex, the odds of tragic results increase. His treatise makes for sobering and provocative reading. --Gregory McNamee
Good introduction to complex systems - Maybe a little dated? This was a very good look at the complexities of modern technology although the analysis and conclusions could be just as valid for any complex system. The issue I see with the book is that the information seems to be dated. There are a number of places where the author draws conclusions based on a lack of experience, technology operating hours, with the systems involved that may or may not be valid based on today's experience. It would be very interesting to see an update to determine if some of his assumptions are correct. If you are looking for an introduction to how portions of complex systems may interact in unpredictable ways, this is a good starting place.
This book will change the way you think. This book will change the way you think. It's as simple as that. Really eye-opening and persuasive arguments and examples as to why the absence of accidents per se is not an adequate indicator of a system's safety. Near-accidents are a better metric. Fascinating!
Recommend but there are some errors in the details I purchased and read the book for the concepts but enjoyed the examples. However, I did find several errors in the events in which I am familiar. Specifically those of space flight. In as little as four pages (pp267-270) he makes three errors. It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the book's examples.
Just for the record: 1) He attributes the second orbital flight of Mercury to Scott Crossfield when in fact it was Scott Carpenter. Crossfield was an X-15 test pilot of great skill, while Carpenter has been noted as the "worst astronaut in the program" by Chris Kraft. There are many accounts of Mr. Kraft openly wondering how Carpenter got to be an astronaut in the first place let alone being allowed to fly into space. This might better explain the events instead of it being a process - system problem.
2) It was almost certain then, and now after the recent recovery of Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule absolutely confirmed, that Gus did NOT blow the hatch. This would have been know at the time of my copy's printing.
3) It was Glenn's heat shield not the landing pack, which the status light indicated had come loose. This would have explained the reluctance of ground control to inform the astronaut since not much could have been done if true.
Of course these are minor and don't lead the author to any significantly different conclusions than if they were corrected. But the sloppiness does make me lower it to a 4 instead of 5 stars.
The Beginnings of an Influential Theory having obtained a second hand copy of "Normal Accidents" in the original 1984 edition, it is fascinating to see how many of the accident scenarios are still valid today. When compared with Lagadec's thesis published in 1982 ("Major Technological Risk", Pergamon Collection Futuribles, o. o. p.), the style is easier to understand, and the book is leaning a little more towards US culture and thinking of the 1980s. Incidentally, Lagadec himself reflected in a 1997 paper how "Normal Accident Theory" had become one of the generic views that engineers and/or sociologists had developed since the early 1990s. Even in 1996, Hood and Jones ("Contemporary Debates in Risk Management") quote Perrow as one of the significant contributors to the fundamental debate in risk management. I very much enjoyed reading one of the early works in disaster and accident theory. Recommended without hesitation, and essential when you are looking for a deeper understanding of the theories that are around today.
A central text of sociology and business Perrow sets out a framework for thinking about the causes of 'normal' i.e. unpreventable accidents by looking at the coupling of features in a system and then overlays the potential severity of a failure to draw conclusions about the real reasons for catastrophes beyond the often useless explanations of user error and acts of God. This is a book that is more often quoted than read, which is a pity as it is well written and thoughtful, though the final attacks on social power relations are a bit over the top.
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