Risk, Uncertainty, and Ignorance in Engineering Systems Design

Risk, Uncertainty, and Ignorance in Engineering Systems Design

Oehmen, Josef (Technical University of Denmark)
Kwakkel, J.H. (TU Delft Policy Analysis)

2022

Uncertainty is the third major perspective in understanding and designing engineering systems, along with complexity and human behaviour. Risk, a corollary of uncertainty, is understood as the effect of uncertainty on objectives. When designing engineering systems, you cannot not manage risk - even ignoring risk equates to a decision to accept it. Engineering systems are characterised by long life cycles, changing operational environments, and evolving stakeholder values, leading to a wide range of uncertainties in their design and operation. Productively engaging with this uncertainty is critical for successfully operating and especially (re-)designing engineering systems. This chapter provides an overview of managerial practices to address the three levels of increasing uncertainty in engineering systems design: from (1) managing risk, to (2) managing uncertainty, to (3) managing ignorance. We differentiate for each level of uncertainty between two levels of value diversity: (1) primarily commensurate values (i.e. agreement on core values by critical stakeholders) and (2) primarily incommensurate values (i.e. no agreement on core values). The managerial practices we discuss are “classic” risk management, public engagement, scenario planning, robust decision-making, resilience, and applying the precautionary principle. In addition, we briefly illuminate the actuality of management practices dealing with the different levels of uncertainty beyond explicit, formal processes, the understanding of managing uncertainty as both modelling and decision support practices and personal and organisational biases in the context of addressing uncertainty.

Engineering systems
Engineering systems design
Resilience
Risk management
Robust decision-making

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:77e5abb9-1fa5-4f37-81bb-42ebc2a0e594

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81159-4_10

Springer

2023-01-31

9783030811587

Handbook of Engineering Systems Design: With 178 Figures and 54 Tables

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

book chapter

© 2022 Josef Oehmen, J.H. Kwakkel