) (07/19/89)
The June 1989 issue of IEEE Spectrum is a special issue on designing and operating minimum-risk systems. One of the articles is about the ATT phone system, and it talks some about the last year's disaster at the Hinsdale telephone switching center. The article is primarily about how ATT manages its long distance network to minimize catastrophes, large and small. MCI and US Sprint are mentioned only briefly, because, as the article says, their LD networks are not as large or extensive as ATT's, and they have not adopted the flexible network architecture ATT now uses. Although the other articles in this issue are not about telephony, they are equally interesting. There are two articles about risk analysis techniques, and about their limits and pitfalls, and there are articles about aircraft aging, the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant, the Challanger explosion, and the Bhopal disaster. This issue is a good introduction to managing engineering risk. John