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Human and Organizational Factors in Nuclear Safety
technology and the organization of work, which he calls “tightly coupled”
229
is
also a factor of unreliability. This property has specific implications – the
sequences in the process are invariant, there is only one way of getting
something done and there are few substitution possibilities for obtaining
supplies, equipment and humanpower. Put together, these constraints limit an
organization’s substitution capabilities. System redundancies are designed in
advance, limiting an organization’s ability to cope with unexpected events.
Perrow also notes that although, on the whole, social organizations ...