Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Refinery Disaster

A very insightful book that really hit home as far as how complex organizations learn or fail to learn. What management believes regarding safety and policy may be very different from what actually is being practiced. While this book is about the Texas City Refinery disaster it has broad application as it really dissects the organizational forces that can cause blindness to major risks.

A difficult story to tell with the terrible loss of life and a corporate architecture that was difficult to unpick but his analysis is clear, his arguments convincing and his writing style crisp and focussed. If you want to understand why process safety is important, and what can happen when it's ignored, give this a thorough read - you'll never look back.

While showing how those responsible for the Texas City Refinery failed to learn, the reader of this book will learn a lot about the direct causes of the disaster and the malfunctions of the organisation behoind it. The book is also a good read.

Book arrived a little later than predicted, but I was emailed to inform me of this and I am satisfied with the book and the service was first class

Quite often safety books are dry, but 'Failure to Learn' is extremely well written and coherently argued. I read this following the UK NSAPI Process Safety Course for Senior Executives, where it was recommended, and found it quite hard to put down. The chapters are clear and focussed, and the style such that you want to pick it up to read the next section to see what your organisation can learn from this. I didn't expect that! I don't usually annotate books, but this one is covered in highlights of learning points to take away.Well worth reading and written in such a way that the points are clear and understandable for non-process safety professionals. Excellent.

Great book!

This book captures the essence of what businesses are doing wrong, identifies why the best of intentions doesn't translate to performance, and gives strong evidence to support your claims of why business decisions are incorrect.

Es una buena referencia para tomar experiencia de fallas que condujeron a desastres en la Industria. Para tomarlas en cuenta.

So many ways to fail. It starts with the management of the company and spirals downward to the employees.This is a must read book that all persons who are in the operation of an operationally processing unit or units. So sad that many lives are lost in this tragedy but for the sake of all who continue to work hard in this their chosen profession, everyone in this arena must have this as as part of the orientation process when they start working for these companies. This should include the management groups to the hourly personnel. A MUST READ. This reading of this tragedy in "Failure to Learn" may or may not help prevent another horrible tragedy like this one from happening again. I pray that it never does.

Very interesting story of the BP Texas City Refinery explosion.

This, plus 'Lessons from Longford' were recommended reading to me by a governance expert.Although Hopkins doesn't single out ISO 31000, reading these two books really does make you question whether having such an easily adopted risk management system like that leaves managers and their fiduciaries thinking they have things in hand far more than they really do.Read these two book and make up your own mind.