DSS News is a free biweekly newsletter from DSSResources.COM about
computerized Decision Support Systems.
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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
April 10, 2005 -- Vol. 6, No. 9
A Free Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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New Article at DSSResources.COM - Check Evan Levy
"Beyond the Data Warehouse: Architectural Alternatives
for Data Integration"
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Featured:
* Ask Dan! - How could innovative DSS have assisted in specific crisis
situations?
* DSS Conferences
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Releases
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Ask Dan!
How could innovative DSS have assisted in specific crisis situations?
by Dan Power
This Ask Dan! builds upon prior discussions of DSS for crisis planning,
response and management. Rather than examine this broad topic from a
general, abstract or theoretical perspective, there is an advantage to
speculating about what might have been possible in specific exemplar
situations. My sense is that this type of exercise can improve contingency
planning and help us develop more sophisticated DSS.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) website at URL www.who.int,
more than 44 countries currently are experiencing a crisis. Not all crises
are of equal magnitude and different computerized decision support is needed
in different types of crisis situations. Grappling with the complexity of
generalizing about DSS for crisis, emergency, disaster and hazard situations
has been and is challenging.
According to the WHO website, "People are exposed to a crisis when local and
national systems are overwhelmed and are unable to meet their basic needs.
This may be because of a sudden increase in demand (when food and water are
in short supply), or because the institutions that underpin them are weak
(when government and local services collapse because of staff shortage or
lack of funds)."
"Crises can be triggered by:
1. Sudden catastrophic events - like earthquakes, hurricanes and sudden toxic spills.
2. Complex and continuing emergencies - including over 100 violent
conflicts, associated displacement and often dramatic political transformations.
3. Slow onset processes - such as the gradual breakdown of a country's
social institutions due to economic downturn, populations affected by
chemical poisoning, or the impact of an inflating level of a fatal disease.
People threatened by crises face heightened risks to their health primarily
as a result of common illness made more dangerous by crisis conditions.
Those who are most vulnerable experience excessive suffering and high death
rates."
The following paragraphs primarily discuss sudden catastropic events like
the Tri-State Tornado, Hurricane Georges, Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Bhopal
gas leak, and the Uberlingen Midair Collision, continuing and recurring
emergencies of various scales of magnitude, and private sector crises.
In much of the world, recurring emergencies of a small scale like traffic
accidents are managed from centralized dispatch centers with computer-aided
dispatch (CAD) tools and the first responders bring some decision support to
the scene of an incident with them. There is a significant opportunity for
expanding CAD to include more decision support while also enhancing its
transaction processing role. More mobile decision support for triage and
hazard management (like encountering dangerous chemicals) can also be
developed. Improved data collection and sharing can also lead to more
timely traffic safety and traffic management decision making at the
management control level in local jurisdictions and enhanced monitoring and
problem identification at more macro level government organizations.
The Firestone Tire recall associated with Ford Explorer crashes demonstrates
a crisis that was mounting slowly for two large multinational companies.
Data collected from traffic accidents was eventually used to demonstrate a
cause and effect link that led the US National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) to advise the companies involved to issue a recall of
6.5 million tires. Estimates of the impact of the faulty tires are
approximately 250 deaths and more than 3000 catastrophic injuries. Most of
the deaths occurred in accidents involving the Ford Explorer which tended to
rollover when one of its tires had a blow out. How could computerized
decision support have helped? A data-driven DSS at NHTSA might have helped
identify the problem sooner. In July 1998, a State Farm Insurance researcher
had "advised the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that
he had found twenty cases of tread failure associated with Firestone tires
dating back to 1992." Bureaucracy, data inadequacy and the disbelief/denial
by some decision makers delayed the identification of the problem and hence
exacerbated a crisis situation at Ford Motor Company and at Bridgestone/
Firestone. Could DSS have helped decision makers at Ford and Bridgestone/
Firestone? Possibly. Managers at both companies had sufficient warning of an
impending crisis to use computerized support to plan a crisis response. If
it been available, managers could have used data at a much earlier stage to
identify the problem and take action to avoid the problem. Business
Intelligence systems would need to become much more sophisticated to help in
this type of situation. Once the recall occurred, communications-driven DSS
including simple bulletin boards could have improved coordination, gathered
feedback and speeded decision-making.
Staying in the transportation sector, the Uberlingen Midair Collision on
July 1, 2002 was a major tragedy. A Boeing 757-200 operating as DHL flight
611 and a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev TU154 collided in midair over
Uberlingen, Germany. Seventy one people died in the crash. Peter Ladkin
(2004) analyzed the crash in a recent paper and a television documentary was
made about the crash. Failures in the aircraft collision avoidance systems
(decision support systems) and in the overall sociotechnical system led to
the crash. Conceivably better computerized decision support and better
procedures could have avoided this crash. Once the crash occurred, the
crisis was poorly managed and eventually a second tragedy occurred when one
of the Air Traffic Controllers was murdered by a bereaved parent of one of
the Russian children killed on the Bashkirian Airlines flight. In
disasters/crises like this, a document-driven DSS can help track the
needs/responses for victims' families.
On an even larger scale, a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, was a tragedy
that continues to stimulate strong emotions. In the early hours of December
3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide India
Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, India. According to the state government,
approximately 3,800 people died, approximately 40 people experienced
permanent disability, and approximately 2,800 other individuals experienced
partial disabilities. Union Carbide provided immediate and continuing aid to
the victims and set up a process to resolve their claims. All the claims
arising out of the release were settled with the approval of the Supreme
Court of India. Could computerized decision support have helped responders
during the immediate crisis? Probably not. Computerized decision support
could have assisted in managing, resolving and settling the claims. The goal
must be to avoid this type of catastrophic accident.
When possible, it is also important to avoid environmental accidents and
crises. For example, small oil spills are perhaps unavoidable and DSS can
help first responders in clean up efforts by predicting the consequences of
a spill and in managing the incident. The Exxon Valdez incident demonstrates
the difficulties in responding to large scale spills. "On March 24, 1989,
the Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef, and spilled nearly 11 million
gallons of oil into the biologically rich waters of Prince William
Sound. ... In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident, the U.S. Congress
passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which required the Coast Guard to
strengthen its regulations on oil tank vessels and oil tank owners and
operators. Today, tank hulls provide better protection against spills
resulting from a similar accident, and communications between vessel
captains and vessel traffic centers have improved to make for safer sailing."
The Piper Alpha incident presents a different situation for computerized
decision support. "On the evening of July 6, 1988, a fire broke out on the
off-shore oil and gas platform Piper Alpha located in the North Sea. The
fire was uncontrollable and evacuation plans inadequate. 167 men died and 62
men were pulled from the sea." The overwhelming magnitude and suddenness of
incidents like this tragedy creates a sense of helplessness, but perhaps
better monitoring and automated decision systems could have triggered
equipment to avert the tragedy or provide some time for evacuation.
Computerized planning support might help test scenarios for this and similar
situations and develop evacuation plans.
Some hazards can not be avoided like earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes,
flooding, wildfires, mudslides, avalanches, and tornados. Longer lasting
natural events like heat waves and droughts require different decision
support. The impact of natural disasters can be very large and civil
emergency and not-for-profit agencies need to invest in many DSS for a wide
range of disasters. For example, the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925 was
the worst tornado disaster in U.S. history. The tornado killed 695 people
and injured 2027. From September 21-30, 1998, Hurricane Georges killed more
than 600 people and the damage estimates for the U.S. including Puerto Rico
were $5.9 billion. Although weather forecasting involves extensive
computerized decision support, more can probably be done to provide
computerized decision support for these situations. Better early warning
and notification systems can be built and monitored. DSS can support
Incident Management and First Responders and assist in the followup of such
disasters. Web portals can help gather relief items and notify the public
about facts following a natural disaster. Communications-driven DSS can be
created to inform, notify and consult with individuals, including potential
victims.
We have created a complex public/private infrastructure that can fail and
lead to "man-made" disasters. New York City experienced electrical blackouts
in 1965, 1977 and 2003. An earlier Ask Dan! (August 31, 2003) commented on
the 2003 crisis. The Aug. 14, 2003 blackout demonstrated that a failure in
control and decision support systems can have wide-ranging consequences.
U.S. President Bush said the power outages across the Northeast and Midwest
were a "wake-up call" to the antiquated state of the nation's electrical
grid. David Talbot, a senior editor at Technology Review wrote recently that
there are "computer models under development that could help avoid the kind
of cascading blackout that occurred on Aug. 14, 2003 in North America. The
key to this solution is rapidly throwing switches and rerouting power so
that, when necessary, large parts of the grid that are ordinarily
interconnected are quickly broken into isolated 'islands'." Decision
automation and DSS will be built to help limit the consequences of
infrastructure failures. The First Responders to such crises will continue
to use computerized command centers and better incident management decision
support to reduce the loss of life and property that might result. Chemical
storage facilities create similar problems on a different scale. For an
example, check the DSS case on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and
plume modeling by Tomaszewski at DSSResources.com.
Dam collapses have had an important place in the realm of crisis management
and dam safety is an ongoing issue. The St. Francis Dam Flood in California
on March 12, 1928 killed 306 people. The failure of the Teton Dam in
southeastern Idaho resulted in the loss of 11 lives and millions of dollars
in property damage. In February 2005, a newly built dam collapsed under
heavy rain waters in southwestern Pakistan killing at least 135 people. In
China in August 1975, the worst dam disaster occurred. The Chinese called
it "Chu Jiaozi" (The river dragon has come!). Altogether 62 dams broke in
this incident. Downstream the dikes and flood diversion projects could not
resist the flood of water from the initial dam collapse. The flood spread
over more than a million hectares of farm land throughout 29 counties and
municipalities. Eleven million people throughout the region were severely
affected and more than 85 thousand died as a result of the dam failures.
According to Thayer Watkins (San Jose State economist) "there was little or
no time for warnings".
What about terrorism and the resulting crises? Implementing structural
solutions to reduce risks when possible are better than hoping that improved
computerized decision support will identify and avoid terrorist threats. My
Ask Dan! column of September 23, 2001 briefly discussed whether DSS and
decision support technologies can help reduce the threat of terrorism. The
United States has changed as a result of the 9/11 attacks (see www.9-
11commission.gov). More than 2,600 people died at the World Trade Center;
125 died at the Pentagon; 256 died on the four planes. The death toll
surpassed that at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The case study at
DSSResources.COM by Matt Walton (2003) documents DSS used in response to the
9/11 crisis. During the 1970s, many terrorist attacks occurred in Western
Europe. The Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army Faction (West Germany), the Red
Brigade (Italy) and the Action Directe (France) created an ongoing terrorist
threat. Improved Law Enforcement databases and improved communications
helped reduce that threat and ended an ongoing crisis.
The number of crisis exemplars is large and diverse, but I'll end with only
three more: public health crises, organizational crises of leadership and
succession and large scale financial crises.
Public health crises have been a problem for humankind for thousands of
years. Plagues and epidemics have ravaged nations and communities.
Collecting data has helped monitor the spread of disease and identify the
causes of such events. Computerized decision support has taken on an
increasing role in this crisis management and response domain. Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Mad Cow Disease, and Bird Flu are modern
pandemics. These crises have killed people, hurt trade and led to the
destruction of millions of animals. Could DSS have avoided these crises? No,
but the goal of new DSS must be to help decision-makers identify outbreaks
sooner and respond faster and more appropriately.
Leaders die suddenly. Often such events create organizational or national
crises. For example, in 2004 there were two sudden succession crises at
McDonald's (www.mcdonalds.com). On April 20, 2004 McDonald's Chairman and
CEO Jim Cantalupo, 60, died of an apparent heart attack. His successor
Charlie Bell was quickly appointed. On November 23, 2004, a second abrupt
succession crisis occurred at McDonald's. President and Chief Executive
Charlie Bell resigned to battle colorectal cancer (Wall Street Journal). On
January 16, 2005, Charlie Bell died of cancer. He was 44. Jim Skinner is the
current CEO of McDonald's. Succession plans, computerized staffing support
and crisis response teams can help in this type of situation, but is there a
need for new type of DSS? Probably not. But a good Web site can help a
crisis response team provide information to shareholders and other
stakeholders.
Finally, financial crises occur. Depressions, financial collapses,
bankruptcies and loan defaults occur. Risk management is an ongoing issue
in banks and in financial regulatory organizations. Could DSS have helped
avoid the 1929 Stock Market crash in the U.S.? One can only speculate based
upon the 1989 crash and other recent financial debacles that DSS can both
compound financial meltdowns and help reverse them. Let's begin with the
Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis of 1998. The LTCM hedge fund was
highly leveraged and regulators had to bail out the banks that had lent
money to the fund managers. The Financial Times reported LTCM had built a
total market exposure (in credit) of US$200 billion. "LTCM's notional gross
market position, adding together the value of all outstanding derivative and
other financial contracts, could be several times that" (28 September 1998).
According to some estimates, the gross value of LTCM's contracts exceeded $1
trillion. "The proximate cause for LTCM's debacle was Russia's default on
its government obligations." A case study about LTCM is on the Web at
erisk.com. Computers and information technologies have created decision
support capabilities for implementing hedging using derivatives. DSS and
information technology are actually creating some crises. According to the
case study, some lessons learned include: 1) "sophisticated financial models
are subject to model risk and parameter risk, and should therefore be stress-
tested and tempered with judgement" and 2) financial institutions must
aggregate exposures to common risk factors. Both lessons learned suggest
better computerized decision support is needed by various participants in
the making and regulating of financial markets. The complexity of modern
financial transactions means that more DSS are needed to manage the risks
associated with lending operations and credit decision making. Check the Ask
Dan! of July 18, 2004 titled "How can DSS help implement Basel II?"
Other crisis exemplars such as computer failures, computer virus attacks,
hazardous material spills, product tampering and political crises like the
overthrow of a government or the Cuban Missile Crisis may be discussed in
a future Ask Dan! column.
What can we conclude? Only some emergencies and crises require or will
benefit from elaborate computerized decision support. DSS are not especially
relevant, helpful or useful in some crisis situations. We need a typology of
crisis situations to analyze DSS needs and gaps for crisis planning,
response and management. We need to critically examine who "owns" the crisis
related DSS capabilities and how such capabilities should be funded and
maintained. Also we need to critically assess what DSS are needed by
public sector first responders, by both private and not-for-profit sector
organizations, and by national and international government agencies.
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References
Bhopal Website maintained by Union Carbide Corporation Bhopal Information
Center at http://www.bhopal.com/ .
Firestone Tire Recall Legal Information Center,
http://www.firestone-tire-recall.com/pages/overview.html .
Ladkin, P. B., "Causal Analysis of the ACAS/TCAS
Sociotechnical System," 9th Australian Workshop on Safety
Related Programmable Systems (SCS'04), Brisbane, 2004, URL
http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/Reports/SCSS04.pdf .
LTCM-Long-Term Capital Management case,
http://www.erisk.com/Learning/CaseStudies/ref_case_ltcm.asp .
Power, D., "Can DSS and Decision Support technologies help reduce the
threat of terrorism?", DSS News, Vol. 2, No. 20, September 23, 2001.
Power, D., "Can DSS/IS/IT improve the Incident Command System? What needs
can DSS meet?", DSS News, Vol. 6, No. 8, March 27, 2005.
Power, D., "How can computerized decision support help in crisis
situations?", DSS News, Vol. 4, No. 18, August 31, 2003.
Power, D., "How can DSS help implement Basel II?", DSS News, Vol. 5,
No. 15, July 18, 2004.
Power, D., "How can DSS help in crisis planning, response and management?",
DSS News, Vol. 6, No. 6, February 27, 2005.
Tomaszewski, B., "Erie County Emergency Response and Planning Application
Performs Plume Modeling", posted at DSSResources.COM March 6, 2005.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Exxon Valdez case,
http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/exxon.htm .
Walton, Matt S., III, "Rebuilding an Emergency Operations Center for NYC
following 9/11", 2003, posted at DSSResources.COM September 11, 2003.
Watkins, T., "The Catastrophic Dam Failures in China in August 1975," at
http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/aug1975.htm .
Yi Si, "The World's Most Catastrophic Dam Failures: The August 1975 Collapse
of the Banqiao and Shimantan Dams," in Dai Qing, The River Dragon Has Come!,
M.E. Sharpe, New York, 1998 (cited by Watkins).
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DAMA+Metadata
May 22-26, 2005, Orlando, Florida USA.
Check wilshireconferences.com/MD2005/index.htm
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DSS Conferences
Upcoming Conferences
1. Second International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis
Response and Management (ISCRAM 2005), Brussels, April 18-20, 2005, Check
www.iscram.org.
PLEASE NOTE: Dr. Dan Power will be discussing DSS for Crisis Response and
Management at ISCRAM 2005.
2. DAMA+Metadata -- 9TH Annual Wilshire Meta-Data Conference and the 17TH
Annual DAMA International Symposium, May 22-26, 2005, Orlando, Florida USA.
Check wilshireconferences.com/MD2005/index.htm
PLEASE NOTE: DSSResources.COM and DSS News are Media Sponsors of
DAMA+Metadata
3. 2005 Crystal Ball User Conference will be held June 13-15, 2005 at the
Marriott Denver City Center, Denver, Colorado, check decisioneering.com/cbuc
4. 2005 DSI International Meeting, Barcelona, Spain, July 3-6, 2005.
5. 2005 NPRA Plant Automation and Decision Support Conference, October 18-
21, 2005, Gaylord Texan Hotel, Grapevine, Texas. Check http://www.npra.org/
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Purchase Dan Power's DSS FAQ book
83 frequently asked questions about computerized DSS
http://dssresources.com/dssbookstore/power2005.html
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What's New at DSSResources.COM
04/08/2005 Posted an article by Evan Levy "Beyond the Data Warehouse:
Architectural Alternatives for Data Integration".
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Tell your DSS Friends about DSS News and DSSResources.COM
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DSS News - March 27 to April 10, 2005
Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive
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intelligence solution delivers key metrics for strategic decision-making.
04/07/2005 Call for Papers: 2005 NPRA Plant Automation and Decision Support
Conference.
04/07/2005 2005 Conference of the International Computer-Aided Dispatch
(CAD) Consortium, Kansas City, KS, April 24-28, 2005.
04/06/2005 Orange County, FL signs on with InterAct; public safety
communications division today hosts local ceremony to unveil InterAct System.
04/06/2005 Greater reliability spurs leading companies to choose Microsoft
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04/05/2005 PortBlue named by Amerinet as preferred provider of disaster
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04/05/2005 RFID technology from Texas Instruments and RF Code brings service
and safety to guests at Steamboat Ski Resort.
04/05/2005 Microsoft scientists use visualization to bring information to
life.
04/05/2005 Air Education and Training Command standardizes on Cognos
enterprise business intelligence.
04/04/2005 Geac delivers advanced reporting capabilities to business
executives.
04/04/2005 Computerworld Honors Program recognizes outstanding achievements
in Information Technology.
04/03/2005 Commonwealth Emergency Operations Center in full activation.
04/01/2005 Roaming Messenger participates in national demonstration of
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04/01/2005 Cognos to drive performance management at Amazon.com.
03/31/2005 Top Six Sigma projects on display at Cummins Expo; data-driven
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03/31/2005 Manugistics expert leads debate on top emerging business
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03/30/2005 DATAllegro launches Business Intelligence Experts Network (BIEN)..
03/30/2005 iWay Software introduces adapters for Geographic Information
Systems (GIS).
03/29/2005 Intergraph's Geospatial Data Management solutions aid emergency
response at San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District.
03/29/2005 Army National Guard's Civil Support Teams gain first-response
interoperability with other agencies.
03/29/2005 U.S. Army to secure mobile medical information with endpoint
security solution from Pointsec.
03/29/2005 MicroStrategy customers lead in web deployment according to
independent business intelligence survey.
03/29/2005 Financial industry experts say banks without real-time network
performance management are at risk.
03/29/2005 U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) deploys Xythos to support
multi-national forces in Iraq.
03/28/2005 Fair Isaac cited among most influential technology companies for
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to improve efficiencies within its corporate legal department.
03/28/2005 The Home Depot selects SAS as software partner for merchandise
operations and integrated revenue optimization solution.
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DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2005 by D. J. Power. Please send your
questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com.
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