The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome
The film The China Syndrome, a story about a nuclear power plant, outlines three components: the discovery and presence of an issue; negotiations and development; and the flow of resolution. This film explores the potential dangers surrounding nuclear power and how it is regulated, specifically ethics and oversight. It also highlights corporate greed and cover-ups. Lastly, the film proves the power of the press. Media's influence is powerful and can escalate issues from zero to 100 overnight. This film offers lessons and gives credence to the risks of poorly structured systems and accountability regardless of what is at stake.
Reaction
This film made me feel fearful of the unknown, specifically nuclear power, and also appreciation of the immense persuasion the media can have over a situation. Coming from a public media background, I understand storytelling and the importance it plays in history. Furthermore, I was drawn in when the film leaned on the media to save the day when Kimberly Wells silenced the negative bullies and gave a voice to the opinion that mattered. This is what the media is intended to do, provide an unbiased platform to share ideas and bring about awareness to issues concerning citizens. This film called to light a scary situation that this could happen with the right amount of oversight compounded into a large issue.
Analysis and interpretation
Sociotechnical systems (STS) is a form of a complex system where people and technology work together towards one common goal within one system. Coupling is looking at a system as both technology and as people. For example, the nuclear plant is a system but is managed by people, therefore, it has both aspects of social and technological. This is beneficial because they manage different elements of the system to cohesively bring together one product or result. “Sociotechnical systems design was intended to enhance the performance of work systems by recognizing the ways in which the behaviors of human actors affect the operation of technology” (Pasmore et al., 2018.) The film emphasizes this in the control room of the Ventana Nuclear Power Plant. These men work alongside the technology to create one product, moving together simultaneously. The connectedness of the social and technical factors creates success or failure of performance and ultimately determines the output. We saw this in the beginning of the film when the alarms went off in the control room notifying the men of the issue. It was their chance to catch the system error before it collapsed. Throughout the film, there was a theme of not addressing the issue and not listening to the warnings both human and technological. This almost led to a meltdown of the power plant. “The key elements of the STS approach include combining the human elements and the technical systems together to enable new possibilities for work and pave the way for technological change. Due to its mutual causality, the STS approach has become widely linked with autonomy, completeness and job satisfaction as both systems can work together to achieve a goal” (Gelderman et al., 2014.) Although social aspects come with potential errors, it is negligence that is preventable within a system failure. This tightly coupled system along with fundamental human negligence contributed to this almost catastrophic event. Within every system, it is important to consider the human aspects carefully. “It is computationally impossible to foresee all the failures that might happen” (Structures of Concern) but how you react to those errors makes the difference. If the power plant president had listened to Jack Godell instead of focusing on the millions of dollars lost by being shut down, there would have been an investigation leading to mitigation to correct human errors. “Responsibility for and control over task performance and the coordination of tasks should be located, as far as possible, with the people directly engaged on the task” (Thorsrud, p. 123) which did not happen and is one of the major failures we see within this film.
In discussing structure, we must address coupling and the best way to explain coupling is to describe it as a cause-and-effect system. When systems are tightly coupled and something goes wrong, a ripple effect affects the entire system. Throughout this film, we see a complex interaction within the STS’ tight coupling. “The tight coupling of a system makes any failure very disruptive, so local solutions have the potential to bring the whole system to a halt if they compromise functional integration with the larger systemic context.” (Structures of Concern) This means within this system any mistake can be very harmful to the system as a whole. The power plant was on the edge of a major systems failure due to a human error. Any part out of place disrupts the whole system and complicates the actions between humans and technology. As seen in this film, the powerful nuclear plant came to a standstill over bad X-rays of a meniscal part of the system. All parts play a significant role in the system which consists of many complex interactions.
Where most of these small mistakes come from are the social aspects, the humans. Failure brews out of low job satisfaction and boredom, as exemplified in the film when the gasket inspector copied the X-rays but failed to check each component sufficiently. “Technological development that enabled industry to replace the efforts and skills of the workers before they could replace his senses. The consequent change in the work made it very difficult to provide workers with complex and interesting tasks” (Thorsrud, p. 123) Nowadays with so much technology, it is easy to remove or limit human responsibility and allow technology to handle the complexity of a system. Technology was reliant at the power plant and operations seemed to become automatic by habit. When a light blinked, they hit the same button. It was not until there was a significant negative change in pattern or structure that humans were alerted. This disruption was both the alarms and Jack taking over the control center by force. Within this story of Ventana Power Plant, we see this system as a complex coupling system that when one small part wasn’t working properly, had a catastrophic effect on the system as a whole, jeopardizing the billion-dollar project and the safety of millions.
How does a system error of this magnitude get resolved? The story led us to believe it was going to take a decentralized approach, which I also recommend. “A decentralized approach to management is suggested, so that those closest to each subsystem can undertake a slow, careful search of the failure to determine what went wrong and what to do about it” (Structures of Concern.) This can be seen as an example within this film in the assumed ending where the trusty companion states in his impromptu interview with the media, that there will be a full investigation and the truth will be discovered. This left the audience with the understanding that something on a grand scale would be done about this near meltdown and done so in a structured, compartmentalized way.
References
Gelderman, M., Hofkirchner, W., Leonard-Barton, D., Leonardi, P., Ahalt, S., Allen, T. F., Alter, S., Aspray, W., Baldwin, C. Y., Barki, H., Barley, S. R., Baxter, G., Beath, C., Beer, S., Benbasat, I., Berente, N., Bijker, W. E., Boland, R. J., Bostrom, R., … Hirschheim, R. (2014, October 25). Beyond the organizational “container”: Conceptualizing 21st Century sociotechnical work. Information and Organization. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1471772714000311?via%3Dihub
Pasmore, W., Winby, S., Mohrman, S., & Vanasse, R. (2018, December 6). Full article: Reflections: Sociotechnical Systems Design and Organization Change. Taylor and Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14697017.2018.1553761
Perrow, Charles – Normal Accident Theory. (2008, December 15). Retrieved May 21, 2024 from http://paei.wikidot.com/perrow-charles-normal-accident-theory
Structures of concern. PAEI. (n.d.). http://paei.wikidot.com/perrow-charles-normal-accident-theory
Thorsrud, E. (1968). Socio-Technical Approach to Job Design and Organizational Development. Management International Review, 8(4/5), 120–131. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40226988
I appreciate you bringing up the role of media in the story, I haven't seen it focused on so much this week. The role that journalism played also struck me as an important part of the story, especially when Kimberly asks Jack, "Don't you think journalism serves a public function?". I wasn't on board with the reporter's opinion at the start because I felt like they just wanted a story even though they didn't understand what they saw. They were seeking the shock value first and then planned to investigate further, later. I do, however, think that they eventually got to the heart of the issue and getting that to the public served an immensely important function.
ReplyDeleteI also thought your integration of Thorsrud's work was well put. The control of task performance was vital to this story. It is difficult for those engaged in the tasks to maintain management control when the consequences are so expensive. I think the plant was intended to operate with specific management channels in place but that goes out the window when supervisors give in to the pressure to please the higher ups who are disconnected from the tasks.
I completely agree that the public served an immensely important function. My impression of the ending of the film was the public and media put pressure on the higher ups to "do something" and prove they are making efforts to mitigate future risk. In any project, there are tasks that separate the various experts form one another and often the decision makers from the doers. This leaves room for mistakes and miscommunication. I also think the control of task performance was a huge factor in this film and a great example to use in discussing STS.
DeleteI appreciate your focus on the media and the effect it had on Ventana and other systems in the real world. I am generally inclined to view systems like nuclear power plants as relatively closed systems because of their high level of technical complexity and the layperson's general misunderstanding of their function. However, your analysis reminds me that those systems are open by necessity, especially when the system is considered to be those involved in the day-to-day plant operations. The media, the board, and senior management all had important roles to play in the fate of the plant and its inevitable failure.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your image of Jack - I would agree with him that his assertion that the system works is true - from his perspective, the day-to-day operations and the staff actively involved in the plant's operations are generally well-designed and run by experienced staff. Therefore, it seems that that system is a subsystems nested within a broader one that is of a more open nature, the interactions within which unfortunately trickle down to the operations subsystem and contribute to system failure.
Thank you for sharing that you came into this blog with a different perspective and maybe were exposed to a new thought by reading my opinions. I agree with you about the subsystems, their seems to be a buffer between them. The domino affect here can be seen though if the operations of the subsystem fails. I think we agreed on this as well. I am curious what your opinion is on if the media was removed from this story, how do you think the STS would change?
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