Dr. Petroski—excellent article! I suppose I'm really uninformed. I thought that surely all surgeons had some form of WRITTEN checklist prior to performing an operation. As an engineering program manager, I would never start a program without a schedule indicating critical path AND a checklist noting those items necessary to accomplish completion. It becomes even more important when differing design and drafting locations are involved. I know you don't have the location issue with surgery but one very tired surgeon operating day after day will make mistakes. It's not if but when. My own doctor has indicated to me several times he needs an IE to examine the organizational aspects of his office. The "doctoring" is quite adequate but front office staff run the place like a zoo.
The problem with medicine is that every doctor is a cowboy. They have license to do pretty much what they can convince the other doctors is standard "operating" procedure.
I think there is great merit in standardizing as much as you can with what has been successful. We all do it in manufacturing, service, and design. Why not the medical community?
And, how about doctors routinely giving drugs to minors that have not been approved for minors, such as mind altering psychotropics? There should be a checklist for that, too!
JimT I agree with you. As a designer I certainly have a mental checklist but I believe the key word is "written". One of my college professors would always make us write stuff down because he said "if you write it down then that says you have thought about it". I agree most of the time if you write something down you have thought about it.
fixated has negative connotations. BUMPFF was RAF standard finals check mnemonic before landing on propellor driven aircraft. i think 'brakes off' is an important check. not fixated at all...just pointing out something missing in your checklist. however if you feel you do not need to check that the brakes are off prior to landing...well, i guess thats up to you.
Aircraft fly the same no matter what part of the world you live in.
That said, the English language isn't even the same in various regions of the UK and US, never mind Australia, New Zealand, Canada, other parts of the world...
Use whatever mnemonics work for you. They appear to be essentially the same, though it appears you have fixated on one phase of flight with your mnemonic.
I cycle through the GUMPF list several times. One does different stuff at different phases of landing. This is a quick and dirty method to ensure I haven't left anything obvious or deadly on the list.
I remember once when I was doing a product commissioning in another country, the customer had a consultant who lived and died by his ever-present check lists. While that made him extremely thorough in his own area of expertise, it caused a certain amount of gamesmanship among some of the others. He obviously couldn't know the details of every component to be checked, so he had to rely on others to furnish the information necessary to create the checklists. I found some people to be very creative in the information they gave him so as to receive very generic responsibilities on the checklist.
By experimenting with the photovoltaic reaction in solar cells, researchers at MIT have made a breakthrough in energy efficiency that significantly pushes the boundaries of current commercial cells on the market.
In a world that's going green, industrial operations have a problem: Their processes involve materials that are potentially toxic, flammable, corrosive, or reactive. If improperly managed, this can precipitate dangerous health and environmental consequences.
With LEDs dropping in price virtually every year, automakers have begun employing them, not only on luxury vehicles, but on entry-level models, as well.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
0 
