Waikato Management School

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EXLD500-11GB Management and Sustainability Assessment 3 Challenger Case

Ron McDowall

Names and IDs

: Carol Guler 1164041 / Hannah Clarke 1075868 / Weiheng Si 1090355 / Emily Zhong 1142917 / Hader Alarifi 1163102

Date

: 11 April, 2011

Introduction

The following case analysis will discuss, what happened in the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster, and describe the contributions from the three key players: NASA, Thiokol and the White House. It will analyze why the disaster occurred and whether integrated thinking could have produced a better outcome; this will include discussion of miscommunication, risk issues and political pressure.

Reviewing the Case

The Challenger disaster occurred on 28 January 1986 where the Challenger blew up 73 seconds after launch, this resulted in the death of seven people and $3 billion worth of equipment was lost. The disaster occurred because of a fault with the O-rings, as they did not seal adequately, this caused flames from the Solid-Fuel Rocket Boosters (SRB) to burn directly onto the external tank. The engineer of Thiokol had realized the risk before Challenger been launched, however, the engineers opinion was not carefully considered.

Contributing factors: The factors can be grouped into two key areas these include internal and external factors.

The internal factors were found by the Roger Commission, who were in charge of the investigation, they include mechanical problems and administrative problems.

The mechanical problem occurred as the field joint in the SRB let the exhaust flames leak. Because of this failure of the sealing system there were four problems, which resulted in the Challenger explosion. This problem involved the O-rings not sealing correctly, this could have been avoided if the Challenger launch was delayed as steel billets were being designed for a new structure of the field joint.

The main problems were with the administration of the project, these problems include: miscommunication and risk issues.

The miscommunication involved lack of communication between the Thiokol engineers and the NASA engineers; this can be seen as the important SRB information from the Thiokol engineers did not reach the appropriate people at NASA. The single chain of command in the management structure did not allow for sufficient communication flow, as the engineers could only talk to their own managers and the information was not accurately relayed. The engineers of Thiokol were unable to get the Thiokol management to understand the importance of the O-ring problem. The Thiokol engineers were not allowed talk to the NASA engineers or management so the importance of the information was not conveyed properly.

The risk issues involved two different factors. The first one involved NASA not having a quantitative method for evaluating the risks, this was because of the expenses associated with the data collection and statistical model generation did not meet the budget. The second factor involved the engineers and the managers having differing values of the risk. The managers were only involved in the business proceedings and not the technical issues so they did not see it as such as large risk and did not want further delays. There was a further risk as there had not been tests at such a low temperature, in this case the managers were happy to accept the tests previously performed but the engineers thought that it was unrealistic as there was no data that matched the conditions of the disastrous launch. Also the managers appeared to fall into a trap as they have a false sense of security that had developed from the previous launches. This trap can be described as the sunk-cost trap where deep-seated biases develop from past choices, even when the past choices no longer seem to be valid (McDowall, 2011). The managers were happy to use the information from the higher

temperature even though for this launch the information was no longer applicable. Moreover, the weather was also another objective factor. The temperature of the day for launching was 18F, the coldest degree than any other launch. Although the engineer reported this risk to manger, but this situation was not considered.

As it can be seen all the mechanical problems could have been avoided if the administrative procedure had been efficient and there had been appropriate discussion of the risks.

The external factor involved the White House that was inflicting political pressure onto the NASA managers due to the competition with the European Space Agency. These political pressures involved the launch needing to occur before President Reagan of the US gave the State of the Union address. Because of this external factor the managers had even more pressure on them to perform within the guide lined time, this made them less vulnerable to risks.

Because of all the contributing factors it can be seen that their needed to be an integrated thinker, who could come up with a plan that would solve the technical problems of the engineers and the time constraints of the managers.

Suggestions Firstly, in order to solve the mechanical problems, an effective and approachable communicative platform should be established

between Thiokols engineers and NASA engineers. Thiokol, which is in charge of designing, knows about the whole details of the SRB project, so they can provide the most useful suggestion for NASA, which is responsible for launching. Thus, once the two organisations engineers can communicate with each other efficiently, they can reduce the technical risk to lowest point. Moreover, managers of the project should have an adequate technical background with the purpose of better understanding of mechanical issues. It is difficult for a manager who does not understand spaceflight technology to administrate a high-tech project because the manager cannot communicate and comprehend well with the engineering department. A possible way is to select an engineer who has suitable management skills to become the manager. Furthermore, the single chain of command must be changed. Engineers from two organizations should freely report important situations to any head of the two institutions. Secondly, the leaders role and duty must be clarified so that they can make efficient judgments. A failure judgment may fail a perfect strategy (Tichy & Bennis, 2007). In this case, NASAs managers are the leaders for this project. However, they are obedient to the pressure from White House so that they command to launch the 6

space shuttle in an unsuitable time. A leader should plan, organise, lead and control. Control is the most important thing because it is hard to predict how process will develop so manager should control the process to go as the planned, or make adjustment when it is required. White Houses suggestion is irrelevant to this project. The leaders role for this project is concentrate on the projects successful. Thus, managers should implement their function and withstand the political pressure. On the other hand, White House also should engage in introspection as well. They should not concentrate on international space competition only, without consideration of objective condition. Briefly, White house should not act beyond their authority.

Overall we think that there should be a board of seven people. These seven include one member from the Thiokol engineering sector, one from the Thiokol management, one from the NASA engineering sector and one NASA manager, also a member to represent the White House. There should also be two external members with enough engineering background to understand the situation one of these external members will act as the chairman of the board. If this board is implemented there will be an opportunity for everyone involved in the project to have an equal say in the decision. This would mean that everyone will have an opportunity to understand the risks involved in the situation and also it will allow for much more equal

communication between both of the organisations, which will lead to better decision making and judgment. Having this board will lead to the most effective leaders that will make a high percentage of good judgment calls (Tichy & Bennis, 2007). It will also lead to much more integrated thinking where, salience, causality, architecture and resolution, the four points of decision making can be used (Martin, 2007).

Conclusion

Overall it can be seen from the case study that management structure is a very important factor of the company because without a good management structure the procedures may fail. If a corporation has a sound management structure then many small issues can be resolved which will reduce the large problems from occurring. Effective judgment is necessary for an effective strategy to control the company and managers need to listen to the engineers who are involved with the technical process.

References:

Martin, R (2007). Becoming an integrated thinker: The keys to success. Rotman Magazine. Retrieved fromhttp://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/integrativethinking/ pdf/becomingAnIntegrativeThinker.pdf

McDowall, R. (2011). Management and Sustainability EXLD500-11GB [Lecture Notes]. Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato, Department of Corporate and Executive Education.

Tichy, N.M., & Bennis, W.G. (2007). Making judgment calls: The ultimate act of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 85(10), p.94-102.