Engineering disasters: The role of engineering versus management cumulative failure risk factor

Abstract

The article investigates engineering disasters as failures of either engineering design, project management decisions, or management processes in general. The paper points out that more often than not the failures of engineering endeavors were due to shortcomings of project management and organizational culture irrespective of the area of engineering discipline involved. The cumulative failure risk factor is proposed to assess an overall project failure risk, which can assist in project failure risk assessment and consequently in identifying the shortcomings in an organization.