Avoiding Overwhelm In their book Meltdown, Clearfield and Tilcsik show how complicated systems fail. They discuss nuclear accidents, financial disasters and medical mishaps and show how we can avoid disasters by reducing complexity. The more complex our systems become, the less easy they are to understand. So they become harder to fix when they break. Add […]
The Problem With Technology
I’m on holiday. Two weeks in southwest France. Glorious autumnal weather, misty mornings, bright sunny days and trees with leaves of every shade from burnt copper to liquid gold (very poetic if a little formulaic, sorry). Of course to get here involved a little trauma; no pain no gain. I had to leave home at […]
The Monument
In the manufacturing world they use the term “monument” to refer to any piece of equipment that is too big for its purpose. They are expensive pieces of capital equipment that drive massive economies of scale at a local level but fundamentally mess up the total system. Because of their inflexibility they must be “fed” […]