IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v126y2014icp81-86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the meaning of the special-cause variation concept used in the quality discourse – And its link to unforeseen and surprising events in risk management

Author

Listed:
  • Aven, Terje

Abstract

In quality management, ‘common-cause variation’ and ‘special-cause variation’ are key concepts used to control and improve different types of processes. In this paper we study the meaning of these concepts, having a special focus on the latter concept: how is the special-cause concept linked to ideas and concepts used in risk and uncertainty management, to reflect unforeseen and surprising events? In the quality discourse it is common to refer to two possible mistakes when confronting the variation: (i) to react to an outcome as if it were from a special cause, when actually it came from common causes of variation; and (ii) to treat an outcome as if it were from common causes of variation, when actually it came from a special cause. However, at the point of decision making it is difficult or impossible to know what the “true†state is. It is also appropriate to ask whether such a true state does in fact exist. In the paper we discuss these issues, the main aim of the paper being to improve our understanding of some of the fundamental concepts used in risk and quality management.

Suggested Citation

  • Aven, Terje, 2014. "On the meaning of the special-cause variation concept used in the quality discourse – And its link to unforeseen and surprising events in risk management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 81-86.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:126:y:2014:i:c:p:81-86
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2014.01.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832014000027
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2014.01.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Edwards Deming, 2000. "Out of the Crisis," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262541157, December.
    2. Bo Bergman, 2009. "Conceptualistic Pragmatism: A framework for Bayesian analysis?," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 86-93.
    3. Aven, T. & Vinnem, J.E. & Wiencke, H.S., 2007. "A decision framework for risk management, with application to the offshore oil and gas industry," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 92(4), pages 433-448.
    4. Aven, Terje, 2013. "Practical implications of the new risk perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 136-145.
    5. Aven, Terje & Krohn, Bodil S., 2014. "A new perspective on how to understand, assess and manage risk and the unforeseen," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Bersimis, Sotiris & Psarakis, Stelios & Panaretos, John, 2006. "Multivariate Statistical Process Control Charts: An Overview," MPRA Paper 6399, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aven, Terje, 2015. "Implications of black swans to the foundations and practice of risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 83-91.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aven, Terje, 2015. "Implications of black swans to the foundations and practice of risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 83-91.
    2. Charles Sabel & Gary Herrigel & Peer Hull Kristensen, 2018. "Regulation under uncertainty: The coevolution of industry and regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 371-394, September.
    3. Terje Aven & Ortwin Renn, 2015. "An Evaluation of the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainties in the IPCC Reports on Climate Change," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 701-712, April.
    4. Zio, Enrico, 2016. "Challenges in the vulnerability and risk analysis of critical infrastructures," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 137-150.
    5. Aven, Terje & Krohn, Bodil S., 2014. "A new perspective on how to understand, assess and manage risk and the unforeseen," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Terje Aven, 2014. "The substitution principle in chemical regulation: a constructive critique, by Ragnar Löfstedt," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 569-571, May.
    7. Torbjørn Bjerga & Terje Aven, 2016. "Some perspectives on risk management: A security case study from the oil and gas industry," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 230(5), pages 512-520, October.
    8. Yuan Yang, 2019. "Reforming Health, Safety, and Environmental Regulation for Offshore Operations in China: Risk and Resilience Approaches?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-13, May.
    9. Aven, Terje, 2011. "Selective critique of risk assessments with recommendations for improving methodology and practise," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 509-514.
    10. Flage, R. & Aven, T., 2015. "Emerging risk – Conceptual definition and a relation to black swan type of events," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 61-67.
    11. Haugen, Stein & Vinnem, Jan Erik, 2015. "Perspectives on risk and the unforeseen," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-5.
    12. Avner Engel & Shalom Shachar, 2006. "Measuring and optimizing systems' quality costs and project duration," Systems Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(3), pages 259-280, September.
    13. Stéphanie Camaréna, 2021. "Engaging with Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a Bottom-Up Approach for the Purpose of Sustainability: Victorian Farmers Market Association, Melbourne Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-28, August.
    14. Linus Schiöler & Marianne Fris�n, 2012. "Multivariate outbreak detection," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 223-242, April.
    15. Cam Caldwell & Do Truong & Pham Linh & Anh Tuan, 2011. "Strategic Human Resource Management as Ethical Stewardship," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 98(1), pages 171-182, January.
    16. Aven, Terje, 2016. "Ignoring scenarios in risk assessments: Understanding the issue and improving current practice," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 215-220.
    17. Sven Ove Hansson & Terje Aven, 2014. "Is Risk Analysis Scientific?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(7), pages 1173-1183, July.
    18. Molly C. Klanderman & Kathryn B. Newhart & Tzahi Y. Cath & Amanda S. Hering, 2020. "Fault isolation for a complex decentralized waste water treatment facility," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(4), pages 931-951, August.
    19. Wang, Wei & Cammi, Antonio & Di Maio, Francesco & Lorenzi, Stefano & Zio, Enrico, 2018. "A Monte Carlo-based exploration framework for identifying components vulnerable to cyber threats in nuclear power plants," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 24-37.
    20. Iskra Panteleeva, 2013. "Changing roles and behaviour of human resources managers in the industrial businesses," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 82-96.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:126:y:2014:i:c:p:81-86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.