Product Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on April 1, 1997. The length of the article is 4031 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Orchestrating successful performance. (mortgage servicing organizations)
Author: John E. Kemeny
Publication: Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 1997
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: v57Issue: n7Page: p75(5)

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on December 1, 1996. The length of the article is 2569 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Check the manual. (maintenance of quality services through well-written policies and procedures manuals)
Author: John Kemeny
Publication: Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 1996
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: v57Issue: n3Page: p71(4)

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Customer Reviews (2)

Generally Good, Early Report On Three Mile Island
On March 28, 1979 the US had a serious nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island (TMI) Number Two reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In response to the accident there were many investigations from many different organizations. This report is from the "Kemeny Commission", a panel appointed by President Carter and charged with making a rapid investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the accident, as well as making recommendations for improved nuclear reactor safety.

The report is highly readable, even to those without a physics or technical background, and is generally accurate. Understand that the Kemeny Commission investigated very quickly (per their mandate), submitting this report on October 30, 1979, just seven months after the accident. Since the publication of this report much has been learned about the TMI accident, and some relatively small details in this report have subsequently been proven inaccurate. Certainly this was not due to lack of diligence on the part of the Commission, but rather due to the expeditious timeline. Despite the speed of the investigation, the Commission produced a generally excellent document, one that is definitely worth reading for any student of reactor safety or system safety.

The best part of the report in my opinion is the identification of reactor safety in the context of system safety, including human performance as part of the system. I believe that because of many of the improvements recommended in this report as well as other outside factors (such as the formation of INPO, for example) that we have a much safer nuclear power system today than we could have had without the insights gleaned from the TMI accident.

In many ways, TMI parallels the disaster of Apollo 1, which though painful to NASA (and obviously devastating to the astronauts who died as well as their families, friends, and colleagues), probably did more to perfect the Apollo spacecraft than any other single event. Many people credit Apollo 1 with allowing the US to fly to the moon in Kennedy's mandated timeframe. So it is, too, with TMI: though a relatively major accident, it taught the industry more about reactor safety than any other event, thus enabling the vastly safer industry we have in the US today.

The report is neither pro nor anti nuclear power, which I think is good, but some of the "Supplemental Views" of the Commissioners do express more pointed views of nuclear power. Some of the positions are very well crafted and argued, most notably the position of Thomas H. Pigford (Professor of Physics), while a couple of them seem more like position papers without strong grounding in fact, notably that of Anne D. Trunk, whose sole qualification to be on the Commission was that she was a resident of Middletown, Pennsylvania.

I find the format of the report a bit unwieldy. Unlike most accident reports (NTSB, AAIB, etc.) in this case there is a brief synopsis of the accident, followed by the conclusions, then supplemental views, and finally a detailed account of the accident. I am not really sure why the Commission selected this format, and while it is no problem for someone already familiar with the TMI accident, it could require quite a bit of flipping back and forth between the front and back of the book for those unfamiliar with the accident. There is a very useful glossary which will help those not familiar with all the terminology involved.

Overall this is a very good, early account of the TMI accident. There have been better accounts written since the publication of this report, but those all had the luxury of hindsight and years of exhaustive investigation. I recommend this book for anyone interested in nuclear safety, the culture of safety, or safety systems analysis.

Concise and well rounded
This book by committee offers a well rounded overview of the 1979 nuclear accident at TMI. It presents a sequence of events and human responses by officials and citizens which is a dramatic historical account. Although itis not completely accurate (written shortly after the accident), itemployed independant investigators who performed a fairly comprehensiveinvestigation. I have seen many documents at the National Archivesgenerated by the investigators. The amount of radiation released is citedas only "estimates" but limits the uppermost value to a levelwhich can easily be disputed by other scientists. Also, the results ofradiation exposure and the misrepresentation of radiation monitoringequipment availability is misleading at best and a wrong at worst. Theconclusion that fundemental attitude changes must occur within the industrywas a phrase which has haunted the industry for decades.

It is a goodoverview, however the Rogovin Commission report is more interesting butharder to read. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on June 1, 1999. The length of the article is 2892 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The online mortgage company manual.(use of document management systems by mortgage bankers)
Author: John Kemeny
Publication: Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 1999
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: 59Issue: 9Page: 103(4)

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Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more