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blastuponsometerries t1_is7a9qi wrote

Reply to comment by AduroTri in Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change: Escaping the Collective Action Problem by CartesianClosedCat

>people being stupid and lazy that cause problems

That is not how safety engineering works.

If an individual being lazy or making a mistake means the whole thing blows up, you just made disaster inevitable because people will sometimes be lazy.

But good design and good organizational design can nearly eliminate entire classes of failure modes.

The real big problem is creating durable organizational culture that can last for the decades the plant is operational. Maintenance and training are annoying to deal with and get in the way of short term profits. The work culture has to be able to strongly resist these forces for a few generations of employees. From new plant with the builder available all the way to when it is deeply out of date and eventually needs to wind down operations and get decommissioned.

Life cycle management of major projects is challenging in governments with low turnover and long time horizons. Its extremely difficult in the private sector where management can change at the drop of a hat.

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HoundsOfChaos t1_is9kiip wrote

>The real big problem is creating durable organizational culture that can last for the decades the plant is operational.

More than anything, this is what worries me. It's not just operating the plants, it's the whole chain, including waste management. Can we trust that our safety culture will still be intact in 50 years from now? What about 100 years?

We can be optimistic and hope so, but there's just no guarantee.

That's a pretty bold bet with hazardous material dumped in various locations that can be dangerous for hundreds of years or even longer (and not just nuclear waste, btw).

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Tubtimgrob t1_is94fsk wrote

And the only way a work culture can resist errors is through a rigid system of processes, error identification, feedback and tedious repetition.

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blastuponsometerries t1_isar0yj wrote

I think that is too gloomy of a lens. Maybe you are correct with regards to maintenance schedules. But there is so much more then that.

If an organization is too rigid, it won't be able to respond effectively to newly arising problems. A lot of it comes down to a few basic principles (they are just hard to do consistently).

One major piece is empowering the low-level employees that are actually doing the real work and day to day interactions with the equipment. That means sometimes they are going to raise problematic issues at inconvenient times.

Are these individuals punished or ignored? Or are they taken seriously and allowed to make consequential decisions, like stopping work until a problem is solved? The Toyota Production System is famous for this feature. A line worker can shut down a whole production train if they find a defect at great cost to the company. Yet, over time the company understands that solving defects early on is overall far far cheaper then allowing them to accumulate silently.

But that means a specific plant can't only be judged on total output at any given time, so the incentives and directives given to middle management have to align with longer term company goals. The work culture has to incorporate these ideas into everyday operations, not just tacked on as an afterthought.

A second major piece involves looking at top level design and revisit periodically as time goes by. Etc...

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Tubtimgrob t1_isdtj8j wrote

You are highlighting the freedom aspects of a quality system and everything you say is correct. But you will also know that it all still needs to exist within a rigid system. The system is routinely updated based on feedback and the expertise of employees. On a daily basis it's still a framework with strict rules and procedures. The culture must exist inside that framework with the power and authority to make improvements.

Toyota is a good example. They pioneered a lot of quality principles. Yes, a worker can shut down production - if shutting down is part of the process. Not if they suddenly feel like it. Can the employee ask for the process to change because they have a better practice? Of course. The system restricts the individual in certain tasks, so they have time and power to do other things. Besides, all Toyota production is done by robots. Why? To avoid variation and increase performance. In other words, humans are slow and erratic. Automation is now replacing many retail jobs for the same reason.

This may seem gloomy and tedious, but it's the main way companies stay competitive. I also believe philosophy should spend more time on these principles. They are the only solution to urgent problems in larger society.

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