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Engineering
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

Risk management: sociotechnological risks and disasters

Profile image of jean-christophe le cozejean-christophe le coze

Abstract

This chapter is about managing sociotechnological risks. It is in the 70s that the notion of ‘high-risk’ (or ‘safety critical’) systems started to be distinguished and grouped into an independent category including industries such as the nuclear, aviation, marine, petrochemical or the railways. Any attempt such as this one to introduce this background in a few pages is necessarily restrictive, partly unfair but also a simplified account. And, there are of course many different strategies to do so. One option is to consider the field through the scientific disciplines involved, say sociology, engineering, psychology, ergonomics, management, etc. A second one, quite related to the first, is to introduce pioneers who, from different disciplinary backgrounds, produced seminal contributions used as shared references among various research communities interested in the safety of complex sociotechnological systems. A third one is to look into industry (aviation, nuclear or petrochemical) in order to illustrate and to differentiate the diversity of problems related to sociotechnological risks and how they materialise. Another option is to identify core concepts that sometimes cut across a range of disciplines, authors and industry which offers also good insights into the issues involved with sociotechnological risks. In any case, it is a very challenging task. The intention in this chapter is to combine a bit of these strategies in order to offer the reader a broad vision, and to follow editors’ guidelines specifying the following structure: first, key concepts, second, major debates and third open questions/perspectives.

Figures (11)
Figure 1. Macondo well disaster, several dimensions to consider from the report (figure 1), while indicating some key of the key concepts found in the
Figure 1. Macondo well disaster, several dimensions to consider from the report (figure 1), while indicating some key of the key concepts found in the
Figure 3. Barriers or defence in depth.
Figure 3. Barriers or defence in depth.
Figure 4. Work situations and human-machine/computer interactions
Figure 4. Work situations and human-machine/computer interactions
Table 1. List of sociotechnological concepts (and/or topics) in relation to scientific ( engineering) disciplines (indicative)
Table 1. List of sociotechnological concepts (and/or topics) in relation to scientific ( engineering) disciplines (indicative)
Figure 7. Defence in depth model (adapted from Reason, 1997).
Figure 7. Defence in depth model (adapted from Reason, 1997).
Figure 8. Migration model (adapted from Rasmussen, 1997). Are accidents normal? represented by boundaries. When they do so beyond acceptable performance, then accidents properties, generate processes likely, at times, to go beyond this envelope, graphically
Figure 8. Migration model (adapted from Rasmussen, 1997). Are accidents normal? represented by boundaries. When they do so beyond acceptable performance, then accidents properties, generate processes likely, at times, to go beyond this envelope, graphically
Table 1. A ‘déja vu’ feeling 30 years apart The rise of network society and its implications for sociotechnological risks
Table 1. A ‘déja vu’ feeling 30 years apart The rise of network society and its implications for sociotechnological risks

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