View non-flash version
April 2013 www.sname.org/sname/mt High performance is about being above aver- age. It ranges on a continuum from being above average and well within operating norms, to extreme high performance at the frontier or cutting edge of present capability. High performance can make things easier. High performance can be thrill- ing. High performance can make things possible. And high performance can be reliability-- getting it right every time. Successful and sustained high performance is in part due to good risk management. Risk may be dened as the eect of uncertainty on real or perceived objec- tives and expectations, positive or negative. e rst component of risk is guring out the expectations and values of the team, the customers, and those that have an interest in the activities of the team. If a team is eval- uating or using a high-performance system or piece of kit, the values are a good place to look as to why?it may be that the organization wants to do something such as breaking a record, perhaps that of diving depth (Trieste ), yacht speed (all the time), or dicult salvage (Glomar Explorer ). It may be the way the organization conducts its business, such as high-speed underway replenishment, or meeting the marks in terms of sched- uling and cargo handling for container shipping. e organization may require high performance because average is not good enough. Record-breaking attempts are associated with high- performance successes and failures. Resilience, in part, is minimized because everything is being pushed at or near design or failure limits. ere is no excess capac- ity because it has been optimized for the purpose of achieving the goal (higher, faster, stronger, more endur- ance, and so on). Racing, whether sail or power, is a good example. e breakup of One Australia while rac- ing in the 1995 Americas Cup is an example of a boat that did not have enough strength, resulting presum- ably from an intense weight minimization eort. On the other end of the continuum is having a high- performance system for an average task. For example, excess capacity is gained by the use of large harbor tugs for ship handling instead of smaller ones with the bollard pull matched to the minimum regulatory and terminal requirements. is increases resilience by use of high performance. In this case, the system has not been optimized in the sense of eciency or being just e Risk Continuum Management in the high-performance environment BY PETER WALLACE Glomar Explorer , now named GSF Explorer , successfully recovered a sunken Soviet submarine o the coast of Hawaii, from water depths of between 5,000 and 6,000 m. Photo courtesy Transocean. ( mt notes )