Simulation-Based Decision Making for Complex Systems. Applications in Disaster Response Planning and Management

It is her depiction of this internal world that makes her book so disquieting: when she lays out the sequence of decisions that led to the launch БЂ“ each decision as trivial as the string of failures that led to the near disaster at TMI БЂ“ it is difficult to find any precise point where things went wrong or where things might be improved next time. БЂњIt can truly be said that the Challenger launch decision was a rule-based decision,БЂ«she concludes. БЂњBut the cultural understandings, rules, procedures, and norms that always had worked in the past did not work this time. It was not amorally calculating managers violating rules that were responsible for the tragedy. It was conformity.БЂ«4. There is another way to look at this problem, and that is from the standpoint of how human beings handle risk. One of the assumptions behind the modern disaster ritual is that when a risk can be identified and eliminated, a system can be made safer. The new booster joints on the shuttle, for example, are so much better than the old ones that the overall chances of a Challenger-style accidentБЂ™s ever happening again must be lower, right? This is such a straightforward idea that questioning it seems almost impossible ...»