Planning II

 

Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf

Number three said nicks-on-tricks
"I will build my house with bricks."
He had no chance to sing and dance
'Cause work and play don't mix

And you wonder why there are engineering codes.

Practical Pig built his house of bricks perhaps because the Engineering Building Code considered that there might be the huffing and puffing of a Big Bad Wolf. It would be much cheaper, and less work, to build his house of hay or twigs like his Brother Pigs, but as the story goes, neither of those houses could withstand the blowing of the Big Bad Wolf

And this is why the bean counters at Southwest Airlines should be ashamed of themselves. They built their system to withstand normal operations, but it would fail when confronted with just a little bit of abnormal operations like a winter storm over a holiday season. The measures that might have anticipated and dealt with a winter storm over the holidays might have been more expensive, just like bricks, but eliminating those measures and pocketing those savings is like building your house out of hay or twigs.

Any operation that plans only for normal conditions is NOT an operation at all. Stuff happens. You better be able to deal with it.  Planning on being lucky is NOT a plan.