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Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters
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by William M. Evan and Mark Manion
Sales Rank: 970125
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$9.45
At Amazon
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Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR April 15, 2002
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0130656461
ISBN-13: 978-0130656469
Product Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
Product Description
A superb book on how to prevent and minimize technological disasters. A complete blueprint for preventing technological disasters in the 21st century. Softcover.
Back Cover Copy
Praise from readers"A superb book on how to prevent and minimize technological disasters." P. Roy Vagelos, M.D. Retired Chairman and CEO,
Merck & Co., Inc. "If you want to know how serious technological disasters can be, how poorly we tend to handle them, and what can be done to reduce or eliminate the dangers associated with them, this is the book for you." Russell L. Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of Management Science
at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "A thorough compendium of technological disasters, complete with detailed descriptions, analyses of what happened, what went wrong, and why. This lucid book candidly addresses human and societal failings that need to be corrected if future disasters are to be prevented." Severo Ornstein, Internet Pioneer
and Founder of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility "Minding the Machines provides us with insights that are greatly needed to cope with the major technological disasters that are endemic to our times." David A. Hounshell, David M. Roderick Professor of Technology and Social Change, Carnegie Mellon University "An excellent, balanced, and highly readable book emphasizing human, social, and organizational elements universally present in technological disasters." Carver Mead, Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science
at the California Institute of Technology,
1999 Lemelson-MIT Prize Winner "This book presents a systematic analysis of the root causes of technological disasters, accompanied by many riveting examples. More importantly, the authors provide the reader with an enlightening discussion on how we can prevent them." David J. Farber, The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems
in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
and Professor of Business and Pubic Policy
at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Description
A complete blueprint for preventing technological disasters in the 21st century.
Why do technological disasters occur, and how can we prevent them? How do we design technological systems that enhance human life rather than imperil it? How do we live with the technology we have created?
In Minding the Machines, William M. Evan and Mark Manion offer a systematic and provocative guide to preventing technological disasters. They reveal the hidden patterns and commonalities beneath more than 30 of the worst technological tragedies of recent historyand identify powerful preventive measures that address every key area of risk.
Minding the Machines throws light on: - * Technological disasters: theories and root causes
- From systems theory to terrorism and counter-terrorism measures
- * Strategic responses to key risk factors
- Attacking the four key causes of disaster
- * Technical design failuresand the organizational failures connected to them
- How communications failures lead to system failures, and what to do about it
- * Socio-cultural failures: the lessons of Bhopal
- Two comparable Union Carbide plants: one safe in West Virginia, one murderous in India
- * The responsibilities of institutions, the responsibilities of individuals
- What corporate managers, engineers, scientists, and government officials can do
- * Participatory technology: the central role of the citizen
- Why citizens must play a far more active part in decisions about technology
In Minding the Machines, two leading experts in technological risk assessment analyze more than 30 disastersfrom the Titanic sinking to Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Challenger shuttle disaster to Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, the Love Canal toxic waste contamination to Bhopal poison gas release. They present lessons learned and preventive strategies for all four leading causes of technological disasters: technical design factors, human factors, organizational systems factors, and socio-cultural factors. They also identify appropriate roles for every participant in technological systemsfrom corporations to regulators, engineering schools to individual citizens.
Technological disasters can kill thousands, and destroy the organizations in which they occur. In recent decades, much has been discovered about the causes and prevention of technological disasters, but many organizations have not learned the lessons or implemented appropriate preventive strategies.
Customer Reviews & Comments
Minding the Machines reminds us of one crucial fact: technological disasters are almost always the result of human error. But the flip side of this truism offers hope: humans learn from their mistakes, and technological disasters can be prevented. Evan and Manion, both professors in Pennsylvania, study a number of key technological disasters spanning the twentieth century-from the sinking of the Titanic to the poison gas release at Bhopal. The result is Minding the Machines: a systematic analysis of technological risk. In each case study of technological disaster, the authors go straight to the heart of the problem: human error. Evan and Manion rightly recognize that "technological disasters are failures of sociotechnical systems." In other words, technologies are human creations, and therefore the root causes of technological disasters should be sought in the human systems that gave rise to the technologies in the first place. Once the causes are isolated, future solutions can be developed. But only at the social, economic, and political levels can acceptable solutions to technological risk be generated. To prevent future disasters, we must mind the machines; the machines will not mind themselves. The pace of the book is slowed somewhat by the exhaustive analysis to which academics are prone. Yet the diligent reader is rewarded. The case studies of the Titanic, Challenger, and Three Mile Island disasters make for fascinating, if sometimes morbid, reading. The meat of the book can be found in chapters five ("The Root Causes of Technological Disasters"), eleven ("The Role of Corporations in the Management of Technological Disasters"), thirteen ("Assessing the Risks of Technology"), and fourteen ("Technological Decisions and the Democratic Process"). With these four chapters alone, Minding the Machines may prove invaluable for those in industry and government who want to better understand how a little prevention can be worth billions in cure-not to mention saved lives. [This review is modified from my original review of Minding the Machines, Colorado Springs Business Journal, 12 July 2002]
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Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters
Available from Amazon
Price: $9.45
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