The Friction Model

Every industrial operation runs two systems.

The one that is written down: procedures, permits, the management system as it appears in the document register.

And the one that actually happens at three in the morning on the third night of a turnaround.

The distance between them is where incidents live.

Most organisations respond by restating the first system more loudly. More training, more signage, more reminders that the procedure exists. This treats the gap as an information problem. It rarely is. People know the procedure. They are not following it because something makes following it harder than not following it.

That something is friction, and friction can be moved. Out of the correct action, so the right way is the path of least resistance. Into the shortcut, so the wrong move costs something.

The assessment measures how far apart those two systems have drifted, area by area.

The four positions
1
Friction unmeasured
The gap exists and nobody knows how wide it is.
2
Friction known
Measured and understood. The design work has not started.
3
Friction engineered
The correct action is the easier one at the points that matter.
4
Friction managed
The organisation corrects its own drift. The only position that survives a change of management.
What opens here shortly
A free assessment, in the coming weeks.
The whole instrument Every item across sixteen areas, visible without an account and without giving us an address. Nothing is withheld to make a point.
Your position, area by area Where each part of the operation sits, ordered weakest first, and what the next position requires rather than a single grade.
A report that states its own limits It says on its face whether the positions were recorded by the site or observed by a named practitioner, and what self-recorded is worth.
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A risk, compliance and governance framework for heavy industry. From Technique Works.