Cindynics, The Science of Danger

This book offers a new perspective to uncover the keys to accident and disaster avoidance. Created with a working group, it presents research and understanding on the root causes of disasters. Indeed, beyond technical failures, human beings are at the heart of organizations and, through the exchange of data and information, influential relationships inevitably emerge such as conflicts of interest and cooperation.

With examples selected from multiple accidents and disasters, this book demonstrates that analyzing the causal chain that leads to an accident is not sufficient if we wish to truly understand it. The role of operational and managerial actors and the complexities they generate are also explored.

Cindynics, The Science of Danger helps readers develop their ability to identify gaps, deficits, dissonances, disjunctions, degenerations and blockages, which are the real dangers in inevitably evolving activity situations. With an easily-understandable approach, this book offers new perspectives in several fields (health, crisis management and conflict resolution).

Auteur
Guy Planchette has spent his entire career at the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, France, and has acquired skills in human resources and risk management. In 2002, he founded the French Institute for Risk Management.

Contenu

Acknowledgments ix

Presentation of the Institut pour la Maîtrise des Risques (French Institute for Risk Management) xi

Foreword xiii
André LANNOY

Preface xvii

Chapter 1. Understanding Cindynics 1

1.1. The approach 3

1.2. The method 4

1.3. The tools 6

1.4. Processes 7

Chapter 2. The Usefulness of the Cindynics Approach and Method 9

2.1. The situation, the founding concept of cindynics 9

2.2. Characterizing an activity situation 10

2.3. Qualifying a dangerous situation within an activity situation 12

2.3.1. Notion of a dangerous situation 13

2.3.2. Qualifying the dangerousness of a situation 15

Chapter 3. The Usefulness of Cindynics Tools 17

3.1. Qualification grid for risk sources that are not easily identifiable 17

3.2. Describing this type of risk source 18

3.2.1. At the global organization level 19

3.2.2. At the level of stakeholder groups 23

3.2.3. At the level of the individual actor 23

Chapter 4. Reducing Risk Sources 25

Chapter 5. A Comparative View Between Dependability and Cindynics 29

5.1. Introduction 29

5.1.1. Dependability 29

5.1.2. The cindynics approach 29

5.1.3. Dependability and cindynics seem to ignore or even compete with each other 30

5.2. What is a complex system? 30

5.3. Dependability approach its strengths and limitations 30

5.3.1. The scope of dependability 30

5.3.2. Description of the system and its components 31

5.3.3. Functional analysis 31

5.3.4. Process hazard analysis 31

5.3.5. Technological choices 31

5.3.6. Identification of failures analyzing risks 32

5.3.7. Strengths and limitations of the approach 32

5.4. The cindynics approach 32

5.4.1. The cindynic situation and its scope 32

5.4.2. Strengths and limitations of the approach 33

5.5. Conflict or complementarity of the two approaches 34

5.6. Conclusion 35

Chapter 6. Perspectives 37

Conclusion 41

Examples of Approaches 45

Appendix 1. Current Risk Management and its Shortcomings 99

Appendix 2. Notions of Interaction and Complexity 105

Appendix 3. The Grounded Theorization Method 109

Appendix 4. Notions of Quantum Theory 111

Appendix 5. Summary of CSDs 115

Appendix 6. Archeocindynic Study 117

Appendix 7. Bhopal Study 137

Appendix 8. More Information About Bhopal 143

Appendix 9. Collection of Information on the Queen Mary II Gangway Accident 149

Appendix 10. Queen Mary Accident Cause Tree 157

Appendix 11. Collection of Information on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Accident 159

Appendix 12. Synthesis Note of the Work of IMdRAFPCN: Vulnerability of Networks and Natural Disasters 165

Appendix 13. The New Cindynics Concepts Training Course 167

Postface 169

Glossary 173

References 179

Index 185