Failure to Learn 1st (first) edition Text Only

by Andrew Hopkins

Respected OHS expert Professor Andrew Hopkins discusses the causes of a major explosion at the Texas City Oil Refinery on March 23, 2005. The explosion killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others. Failure to Learn also analyses the similarities between this event and the Longford Gas Plant explosion in Victoria in 1998, featured in his earlier book Lessons from Longford.Professor Andrew Hopkins is being recognized by the European Process Safety Centre in October 2008, in recognition of his contribution to safety. Professor Hopkins is the first winner to receive the award, outside of Europe, which is a demonstration of the impact of his valuable work worldwide.Andrew has been awarded a prize by the European Process Safety Centre for “extraordinary contribution to process safety”, the first time this has been awarded outside of Europe.He also appears in the US Chemical Safety Board film on Texas City and has been invited to appear in a subsequent film.The foreword for the book was written by Carolyn Merritt, chair of the CSB at the time of the accident and subsequent inquiry.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Brahm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone in manufacturing, chemical or process industries where process safety risks exist.

Unfortunately the book is out of print (published 2008) and copies are only available online at inflated prices. Worth it at twice the price, in my opinion.

[Arnoud De Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very specialized book that analyses the disastrous explosion at BP's Texas City refinery in 2005. After the description of the event, Andrew Hopkins goes in a detailed analysis of why this could happen.
Having taught operations management (often with an emphasis on manufacturing management), I am convinced this is a must read for anyone who is even remotely involved in ensuring safety in operations.
Hopkins is excellent in explaining the differences between personal safety and process safety, and pointing out that senior management usually pays a lot more attention to the easy to count personal safety problems. But ensuring the integrity of the process is as important. He points out and explains why BP was not good at learning from previous process safety incidents.
The book contains a few excellent suggestions on how to adjust management of safety both for senior management, boards and regulators.
As I said, a must read for anyone who is involved in ensuring safety, far beyond the petrochemical industry.

[Kerry Trombley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. A must read for anyone involved in the petroleum/chemical or other safety sensitive industries.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read book for anyone involved in industry with a significant process safety element. Hopkins' treatment of the Texas City explosion is insightful and digs behind the primary cause to the underlying issues leading to risk blindness. The underlying failures of leadership from the top of the company allied to changes in maintenance philosophy and effective deployment of resource are all too recognisable. Anyone with responsibility under COMAH in the UK should read this book and then reflect on their own organisation and learn. Many books over the years point to the inability of organisations to learn , from Flixborough to Piper Alpha, Deep Water Horizon etc and whilst this book falls into that pantheon it does at least help address the root causes behind the failure to learn.

[Vince d’Entremont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read on how organisations fail to learn from past mistakes (both internal and external mistakes). The author includes an interesting discussion on the challenges of decentralization. The author also speaks to the unfairness of blaming individuals for causing major accidents, when the environment and culture created by the organization is in fact more blameworthy than any individual. I would recommend this book to anyone who works in an environment where process safety is a priority.

[Meaghan LaBarre · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good, insightful read for anyone who works in the chemical/petroleum industries. This book takes a deep dive into the event as well as causes leading up to it. Further, he does an excellent job explaining the aftermath and why we have access for this information today. I thoroughly enjoyed this and plan to read again throughout my future in engineering.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

READ OCT 2012

Excellent treatment of the BP Texas City Refinery disaster. The authors focus on risk management vs. compliance, and the influence cost cutting, reward structure, decentralization, and leadership had on the incident is informative. The description of the learning disability is informative for any learning professional. The ineffectiveness of learning says more about the design/delivery and should not be over generalized to all training. Poorly designed training is just that -- poorly designed. Performance-based learning may be a challenge to develop, but it makes a difference in the short- and long-term.

[Gary Gudmundson · Rating 3 out of 5]

on the cultural conditions and the facts of the BP Texas City incident. risk management, cost cutting, reward structure, decentralisation, leadership all contributed to a failure to learn and that lead to BP blindness to major risk, according to author.

This is a sobering good read for those in high-risk process industries.

[Stephen Jarman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only a great report on the underlying, systemic causes of the explosion that killed 15 and injured more than 170, Hopkins uses the backdrop of leadership gaps that are often present in companies but also very difficult to diagnose, or admit to.