Safety Accidents in Risky Industries: Black Swans, Gray Rhinos and Other Adverse Events

211 Pages·2022·9.397 MB·English

by  Sasho Andonov

Safety Accidents in Risky
Industries

Safety Accidents in Risky
Industries
Black Swans, Gray Rhinos and Other
Adverse Events
Sasho Andonov
First edition published 2022
by CRC Press
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© 2022 Sasho Andonov
First edition published by CRC Press 2022
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ISBN: 9781032136479 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032136493 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003230298 (ebk)
DOI: 10.1201/9781003230298
Typeset in Times
by codeMantra
“ To think that nothing bad could happen
to you, you need to be stupid!
To think that you can survive everything bad which
can happen to you, you need to be prepared!”
( Said by a very wise guy…)

Contents
Preface.......................................................................................................................xi
Author ......................................................................................................................xv
Acronyms and Abbreviations.................................................................................xvii
Introductory Explanations Regarding the Things and Terms in This Book ..........xix
Chapter 1 Philosophy of Science As Introduction ................................................1
1.1 Introduction ...............................................................................1
1.2 History of Human Scientific Thinking ......................................1
1.3 Determinism, Randomness, and Chaos ....................................4
1.4 “ The Context of the Things” .....................................................6
1.5 Reasons for Unpredictability .....................................................9
1.5.1 Randomness ...............................................................10
1.5.2 Uncertainty .................................................................14
1.5.3 Randomness Vs Uncertainty ......................................18
1.6 Randomness, Uncertainty, and Predictability .........................21
Chapter 2 The Black Swan Events ......................................................................23
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................23
2.2 Can the BSe Be Considered in the Risky Industry? ................24
2.3 Consideration of the BSe in the Risky Industries ...................26
2.3.1 It Is Unpredictable… ..................................................27
2.3.1.1 Extension of the Definition of Probability ..28
2.3.1.2 Statistics and Probability ............................31
2.3.1.3 Probability Distributions ............................32
2.3.2 It Has Huge ( Usually Bad!) Consequences When
It Happens… ...............................................................35
2.3.3 Analyzing the Event Later, We Realize that It
Was Logical to Happen… ..........................................37
2.4 The Characteristics of the BSe in Stock Exchange Area ........39
2.5 The Outliers and the Black Swans Events ...............................43
2.6 The Differences of “ the Context of the Things” in Stock
Exchange Vs Risky Industry ...................................................46
2.7 Influence of the Complexity in the Risky Industries ...............49
2.8 The Equipment and the BSe in the Risky Industries ..............50
Chapter 3 Analysis of the “ Fat-tails” in the Risky Industries.............................57
3.1 Introduction .............................................................................57
3.2 Swiss Cheese Model ................................................................59
3.3 Swiss Cheese Model and Alignment of the “ Holes” ...............63
vii
viii Contents
3.3.1 Alignment of the “ Holes” in Same Time ...................64
3.3.2 Alignment of the “ Holes” in Sequence of Time ........67
3.4 Multiple Causes of Accident to Happen…? .............................68
3.5 May We Use This Approach in
the Risky Industry? .................................................................70
Chapter 4 What to Do with BSe in the Risky Industry? .....................................73
4.1 Introduction .............................................................................73
4.2 How We Calculate the Risk in the
Risky Industries? .....................................................................73
4.3 BSe in the Risky Industries .....................................................77
4.4 The BSe and Ignorance ...........................................................80
4.5 The BSe and Procedures .........................................................83
Chapter 5 The Gray Rhino Events ......................................................................85
5.1 Introduction .............................................................................85
5.2 The Gray Rhinos .....................................................................86
5.3 The Phases of GRe ..................................................................88
5.4 Differences between BSe and GRe .........................................90
5.5 How to Deal with the GRe in General? ...................................91
Chapter 6 Specifics of the GRe in the Risky Industries .....................................95
6.1 Introduction .............................................................................95
6.2 How to Prepare to Handle GRe in the Risky Industries? ........96
6.2.1 Understanding the GRe in General ............................97
6.2.2 Understanding the GRe in “the Context of
Things” of Your Organization ....................................97
6.3 Information Vs Data ................................................................97
6.4 Defense Lines for GRe ..........................................................100
6.4.1 Defense Lines of the Company ................................100
6.4.2 Defense Lines of the Regulator ................................101
6.5 Intentional or Unintentional GRe ..........................................102
6.6 Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020… .....................................104
Chapter 7 The Invisible Gorilla ........................................................................105
7.1 Introduction ...........................................................................105
7.2 The Invisible Gorilla Experiment ..........................................105
7.3 Illusions of IG ........................................................................107
7.3.1 Illusions of Attention ................................................108
7.3.2 Illusion of Memory ...................................................108
7.3.3 Illusion of Confidence ..............................................109
7.3.4 Illusion of Knowledge ..............................................111
Contents ix
7.3.5 Illusion of Cause .......................................................113
7.3.6 Illusion of Potential ..................................................114
7.4 IG in the Risky Industries .....................................................115
7.5 How to “ Fight” Illusions of Invisible Gorilla? ......................117
7.5.1 How to “ Fight” the Illusions of Attention?...............119
7.5.2 How to “ Fight” the Illusion of Memory? .................120
7.5.3 How to “ Fight” the Illusion of Confidence? .............120
7.5.4 How to “ Fight” the Illusion of Knowledge? .............121
7.5.5 How to “ Fight” the Illusion of Cause? .....................122
7.5.6 How to “ Fight” the Illusion of Potential? .................122
7.6 Epilogue for the Invisible Gorilla… ......................................123
Chapter 8 Other “ Safety Animals” ...................................................................125
8.1 Introduction ...........................................................................125
8.2 The Gray Swan Events ..........................................................125
8.3 The Black Elephant Events ....................................................126
8.4 The “ No Seen – No Hear – No Speak” Monkeys .................127
8.5 The Ostrich in the Sand .........................................................128
8.6 The Dragon-King Events .......................................................129
8.7 The Red Herring ....................................................................131
Chapter 9 How to Fight “ Safety Animals”? .....................................................133
9.1 Introduction ...........................................................................133
9.2 Areas Affected by “ Safety Animals” ....................................134
9.3 Taleb’s “ Platonicity” ..............................................................135
9.4 The Gray Rhino’s Harbingers ................................................137
9.5 Dealing with the Consequences Instead of the Causes…? ....139
9.6 Anticipatory Failure Determination ( ADF) ..........................140
9.7 Video Games as Training and/ or Analyzing Tool .................142
9.8 Real-Time Monitoring ...........................................................143
9.9 Reverse Stress Testing ...........................................................147
9.10 Change Management .............................................................148
9.11 Predictive Maintenance .........................................................148
9.12 Management Systems ............................................................150
9.13 Contingency Plans .................................................................151
9.14 Regulatory Bodies .................................................................153
9.15 Survival Psychology ..............................................................155
9.15.1 Survival Psychology for Individuals ........................156
9.15.2 Survival Psychology for Companies ........................158
9.16 Resilience Engineering and Resilience Management ...........162
9.17 Human Factors and Behavioral Safety ..................................165
9.17.1 Human Factors .........................................................166
9.17.2 Behavioral Safety .....................................................166
9.18 List of Hazards and Uncertainty ...........................................169