On Organizational Accidents

The paper deals with accidents causing organizational failure. A comparison between the two different types of accidents, organizational and personal, is provided. Examples of organizational disasters in history, along with the contributing factors are presented. A model describing the `anatomy' of organizational accidents is presented. The model provides the factors causing barrier failure. Concepts of Reliability Engineering are provided to determine Process availability. Process Availability is essential to meet the process demand rate. Increased process demand is likely to cause additional stress on workers thus resulting in unsafe acts.