MONTHS TO STOP OIL LEAK, BP SAYS!

MONTHS TO STOP OIL LEAK, BP SAYS

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© May 31, 2010

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AUTHOR WILLIAM L. LIVINGSTON IV WRITES:

Sire James,

I could be wrong, but I thought a prevention device itself failed, which caused the oil disaster – not a human override.

This gulf disaster is a classic in every dimension. It follows in the tradition of Katrina and Challenger. The details don't matter.

Litigation about the "cause" will go on for 15 years or longer.
Before years-end, it will come out that:

(1) The dangers and appropriate precautions were well recognized (Boisjolly, Markopolos) before the rig was built. (Note: Boisjolly and Markopolos were whistle blowers – Fisher)

(2) The engineers presented their case for appropriate prevention to BP management. Think Chief Operating Engineer (COE).

(3) Management arbitrarily overrode the engineering recommendations.

(4) A chain of events, some improbable, lined up in formation to defeat the single blowout preventer.

(5) The associated institutions are woefully incompetent to deal with the crisis.

(6) The public pays the bills and suffers the damage

By D4P thinking, ownership of the responsibility for outcomes transferred from the designers to management at step 3. Just like the bosses at Thiokol, BP management will get off Scott free and keep their jobs. The next rig disaster will fall outside of the regulations formulated in retrospect from this one. And, there will be a next.

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DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

William,

Thank you. It is my sense as well, listening to the Congressional hearings with BP executives, that it was indeed a failure of in place engineering prevention.

Incidentally, the Exxon Valdez litigation went on for years and mounted to millions of pages. BP's latest estimate is that the leak is unlikely to be sealed before at least August. I may never see the end of this ordeal in my lifetime.

It is past the point of the blame game. It is time to learn. It is time to read and digest D4P. It is time to get beyond hindsight thinking, not only in this instance, but also culturally, across the board.

Be always well,

Jim

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NOTE:

Livingston is the holder of some 100 patents and author of several books. The most recent is the one mentioned here, DESIGN FOR PREVENTION (2010). D4P anticipated incipient disaster brought on by hindsight thinking, institutional infallibility, and chain of command authority where engineers and technicians did as they were told. Management-leadership and workers were complicit, a theme common to my many books. Livingston insists in D4P that management, in a posture of infallibility, assumes a role it cannot possibly fulfill. He argues persuasively that complexity is relegated to simply another factor to be dealt with when the methodology and mindset is all wrong for understanding much less dealing effectively with complexity. Livingston introduces the reader to a cadre of folks (in D4P) who have dealt with such problems, but have been summarily ignored.