FRAM: The Functional Resonance Analysis Method: Modelling Complex Socio-technical Systems

by Erik Hollnagel

Overview

There has not yet been a comprehensive method that goes behind 'human error' and beyond the failure concept, and various complicated accidents have accentuated the need for it. The Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) fulfils that need. This book presents a detailed and tested method that can be used to model how complex and dynamic socio-technical systems work, and understand both why things sometimes go wrong but also why they normally succeed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781409487036
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	10/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Erik Hollnagel (Ph.D., psychology) is Professor at the Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Industrial Safety Chair at MINES Paris-Tech (France), Professor Emeritus at University of Linköping (Sweden), and Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Technische Universität München (Germany). Since 1971 he has worked within universities, research centres and industries in several countries facing problems from several domains, including nuclear power generation, aerospace and aviation, air traffic management, software engineering, healthcare, and land-based traffic. His professional interests include industrial safety, resilience engineering, accident investigation, cognitive systems engineering and cognitive ergonomics. He has published more than 250 papers and authored or edited 18 books, some of the most recent titles being The ETTO Principle (Ashgate, 2009) and Resilience Engineering in Practice (Ashgate, 2011). Erik Hollnagel is also Editor-in-Chief of the book series Ashgate Studies in Resilience Engineering.

Table of Contents

Contents: Prologue; The need; The intellectual background; The principles; The method: preliminaries; The method: identify and describe the functions (step 1); The method: the identification of variability (step 2); The method: the aggregation of variability (step 3); The method: consequences of the analysis (step 4); Three cases; Afterthoughts; FRAM on FRAM; Index.

Editorial Reviews

’One of Hollnagel’s strengths is tenacity. Rather than completing a method and declaring victory, he continues to explore issues of how to understand complex socio-technical systems. Rather than a destination, FRAM is the most recent step in Erik Hollnagel’s continuing quest for relevance, and we are fortunate to share the trip.’ Cognition, Technology and Work, No 15, 2013 ’The author makes a convincing case that the FRAM will allow analysis of any accident, to all levels of contributory causation, without the rigidity and scale invariance of other prescribed models.’ Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine Vol. 84, No. 11 November 2013

From the Publisher