The Mission Dependency Index: Fallacies and Misuses

The U.S. infrastructure is extensive and faces performance, physical deterioration, natural disaster, terrorism, and social challenges. The problem is further compounded by the fact that funds are limited. Decision‐makers need to prioritize their assets on the basis of risk and allocate budgets accordingly. The response to this situation has been the quest for a simple equation that quantifies risk in terms of ordinal numbers. Unfortunately, most proposed risk indices are seriously flawed and likely to lead to bad decisions. This paper first focuses on the Mission Dependency Index (MDI) as an example of an over‐simplified model that has gained wide acceptance for ranking facility risk. It then proposes the Operational Risk Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (ORFMEA) as a rational method for analyzing potential threats to facilities and link to missions. The ORFMEA enhances the standard Operational Risk Management (ORM) assessment by incorporating vulnerability and facility/mission time criticality.