Asset-intensive organizations such as utilities, heavy engineering, pharmaceuticals, and transportation rely on physical assets that are expensive, complex, and have a major impact on organizational performance.
Published in Chapter:
Assessing HRO Principles for Reliable Performance in Asset-Intensive Organizations: Expecting the Unexpected
Jan-jaap Moerman (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Jan Braaksma (University of Twente, The Netherlands), and Leo A. M. van Dongen (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Copyright: © 2019
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-7152-0.ch009
Abstract
Asset-intensive organizations rely on physical assets that are expensive, complex, and have a significant impact on organizational performance. The management of such assets is essential when seeking for reliable performance in a world of increasing uncertainties. The observation that asset-intensive organizations deal with increasingly complex and tightly coupled systems and often operate in highly demanding environments may indicate that they should adopt practices from high reliability organizations (HRO) to ensure and maintain reliable performance in the fourth industrial revolution. This chapter operationalizes the HRO concept in the field of physical asset management, measures to what extent the underlying principles are recognized, and explores the relationship between the HRO principles and asset performance using a descriptive survey. Results indicated that the HRO principles are recognized and may, therefore, serve as an instrument for reliable performance when adopting new technologies. A positive relation between asset performance and the five HRO principles was identified.