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CE 268K: Human and Organizational Factors: Quality and Reliability of Engineered Systems

Course Description

Since the dawn of engineering, engineers have been concerned with how to prevent failures. But, in spite of these concerns, and with the background of the tremendous progress that has been made by engineering and the generally very successful outcomes from engineering, today we see many examples of major failures of engineered systems (e.g. East Coast blackout, Columbia shuttle accident, 9-11 World Trade Towers collapse, San Francisco Bay Bridge project, failure of the flood defense system for the greater New Orleans area). There are many more such failures that we do not hear much about because they end up in the courts; most frequently, these are project failures that result in significant cost over-runs and / or completion delays and create many unhappy customers. This course addresses the primary element that has been involved in these failures of engineered systems: humans and their organizations.

This course advances the concept that humans and their organizations are an integral part of the engineering paradigm and that it is up to engineers to learn how to better integrate considerations of people into engineering systems of all types. This course focuses this concept on the assessment and management of the risks associated with engineered systems during their life-cycle (concept development through decommissioning). Risks (likelihoods and consequences) are addressed in the contexts of the desired quality from an engineered system including serviceability (fitness for purpose), safety (freedom from undue exposure to harm), compatibility (on time, on budget, with happy customers including the environment), and durability (freedom from unexpected degradations in the other quality characteristics). Recently, I have added two more attributes of quality: Sustainability (can be maintained with minimal resource demands for the desired life) and Resilience (rebounds quickly after disturbances or failures). Reliability is introduced to enable assessment of the wide variety of hazards, uncertainties, and variabilities that are present during the life-cycle of an engineered system. Proactive, Reactive, and Interactive approaches are advanced and illustrated to assist in the assessment and management of risks. These approaches employ three fundamental strategies: reduce the likelihoods of malfunctions, reduce the effects of malfunctions, and increase the detection and remediation of malfunctions.

Course Time & Location

Lectures for this course are scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. in 7 Evans Hall. The lectures and discussions will start promptly at 9:40 a.m. and conclude promptly at 11:00 a.m. Students are expected to be seated and prepared for the lectures before 9:40 a.m. (please make sure cell phones and other electronic communication devices are turned off).

Syllabus

Download a complete course syllabus with details regarding:

Course Conduct
Schedule of readings and lectures
Grading assessments
Student deliverables
Suggestions
Course Assistance
Hot topics for course term projects
Validity and Reliability of Engineering Analytical Methods & Processes

Recommended Reading

Tradeoffs, Imperatives of Choice in a High-Tech World, E. Wenk, Jr., The John Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions, G. Klein, The MIT Press, 1999.

The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dorner, Metropolian Books, 1989.

Risk-Based Management, A Reliability Centered Approach, R. B. Jones, Gulf Publishing Co, 1995.

Human Error, James Reason, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Guidelines for Preventing Human Error in Process Safety, Center for Chemical Process Safety, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1994.

A Guide to Practical Human Reliability Assessment, B. Kirwan, Tayulor & Francis, 1994.

Managing the Unexpected, K. E. Weick and K. M. Sutcliffe, Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Lethal Arrogance, Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies, L. J. Dumans, St. Martins Press, 1999.

Normal Accidents, Living with High-Risk Technologies, C. Perrow, Princeton University Press, 1999.

Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, James Reason, Ashgate, 1997.

Guidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis, Center for Chemical Process Safety, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1989.

Human Reliability & Safety Analysis Data Handbook, D. I. Gertman and H. S. Blackman, John Wiley & Sons, 1994.

Accident Precursor Analysis and Management - Reducing Technological Risk Through Diligence, National Academy of Engineering, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2004.