Four under-acknowledged points in infrastructure operations

1. The language of risk is now so naturalized that it seems the obvious anchor point of analysis, as in: “Ok, the first thing we have to do is assess the risks of flooding here. . .”

No. The first thing you do is to identify the boundaries of the flood system you are talking about as it is actually managed and then the standards of reliability to which it is being managed (namely, the events must be precluded or avoided by way of management) and from which follow the specific risks to be managed to meet that standard. (Note a standard doesn’t eliminate risks but instead identifies the risks that have to be managed in order to meet the standard.)

2. Economists, engineers and system modelers with whom I’m familiar tend to conceptualize interconnected critical infrastructure systems (ICISs) along the lines that Garret Hardin did 50 years ago for what he called the Tragedy of the Commons (“imagine a pasture open to all”).

In our case, imagine an ICIS open to all manner of vulnerability and complex interconnectivity. Our research insists that this too is precisely what you cannot assume empirically or conceptually. Rather, another anchor point is that these systems are far more differentiated than they are alike when it comes to “interconnectivities” by virtue of their different configurations and shifts from one configuration to another.

3. Just as a major work of art is always in excess of a single interpretation, the major management of a critical infrastructure is in excess of its technology. And “excess” is exactly the word, as its use here is antithetical to any claim that “excess capacity undermines technological and economic efficiency.”

4. Real-time infrastructure management requires very, very smart people, and ones who are decidedly not automated ciphers that need only know the difference between two prices in order to act rationally. What is irrational are those leaps from macro-design to micro-operations or back that ignore, when not altogether dismissing, the unique knowledge bases and learning of the reliability professionals that anchor operations in between.