Comprehensive systems modeling approach to high reliability organizations

Most organizations hope for perfection, but do not expect it. After all people make mistakes and machines break down. Yet there are large and highly complex organizations such as nuclear power plants, navy aircraft carriers and medical service providers, whose goal must be to operate near perfection. These organizations are known as high reliability organizations (HROs). Recently more organizations have shown an interest in procedures needed to become HROs. While research into HROs has been commonplace, not much is known about how non-HROs can develop into an HRO. The purpose of this article is to present a guideline for a theoretical HRO development framework using general systems theory. The process combines process flow analysis, opportunity cost issues, quality and safety check points. The resulting framework will assist managers in the pursuit of a robust systems model which is better suited for system dynamic analysis and helps to better determine system behavior over time. The guidelines developed are important to engineering management because they offer a step-by-step process organizations can use to reach HRO status. Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2012.