Application of Selected Management Principles to Infrastructure Risks. R. Zimmerman and R. Sparrow, New York University; I. Juran, J. Falcocchio, and A. Protopapas, Polytechnic University
Infrastructure failures have become all too common a feature of urban life, often involving deaths or injuries. Risks associated with urban infrastructure are multidimensional, ranging from safety, security, environmental, economic and social integrity to less injurious effects of comfort, convenience, and aesthetic nuisance. The management of infrastructure involves many functions ranging from planning and design through operation, maintenance and oversight. Risk in engineered systems is typically conceptualized as a design issue, yet operations and maintenance affect how realistic risk values actually are. Effective coordination of these functions is required within and among organizations and with the public to manage and reduce risks by remedying their separateness and lack of integration. Management concepts can provide a framework for integrating the risk assessment process across functions from design through maintenance. This paper applies two management concepts -- structure and communication -- to understand and evaluate risks in transportation and environmental facilities that arise in this sequence of functions. Interorganizational and intraorganizational structure reflect how effectively specialized and internalized functions are coordinated across organizational boundaries. Communication of standard specifications as well as technological innovations within and among organizations reflects how organizations address changing interdependencies involved in managing the range of functions from design to maintenance. Bridge, transit and water system failures within the last decade are used to illustrate how failures were associated with the need for interagency coordination and communication from design through maintenance to compensate for non-redundant designs and ambiguous materials specifications. Recent attempts to introduce coordinated structural features and communication systems in these infrastructure areas are also evaluated, such as one-stop construction and maintenance. It is shown that both structure and communication can play a key role in how risk estimates are derived and the extent to which risks are realized.
This research is supported by the National Science Foundation Civil Infrastructure Systems initiative.