Organisational lessons from failures

This paper reviews reported causes of a range of engineering failures from around the world in an attempt to define general lessons for future projects. It draws on cases of major failures reported over the past few years and the conclusions of an earlier review reported in 1979. The reports indicate that not a single failure was caused by hitherto unknown physical phenomena occurring without prior warning. All were caused by failures to use information available somewhere. They were therefore ‘institutional’ risks of systems of organisation, communications and procurement.