Management of Competence: Lessons from History

Management of Competence

In his review of “Texas City Refinery Explosion: Lessons Learned”, J. Mogford mentions five underlying causes, all management responsibilities and one in particular are linked to the theme of this paper:

And finally, poor performance management and vertical communication in the refinery meant there was no adequate early warning system of problems and no independent means of understanding the deteriorating standards in the plant through thorough audit of the organisation.”

What he and others have failed to reinforce is the standard of competence at all levels of failing organisations.

This paper will address incidents of a similar nature and consider a framework for bringing process competence to the fore.