One of the best books in my career is the first edition of “Field Guide to Human Error Investigations” (pdf) by Dr. Sidney Dekker (Ph.D. in Cognitive Systems Engineering); which then became “The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error” (2nd Edition). Those of you in the Process Safety arena have some baseline knowledge of “Human Factors”. Heck OSHA and EPA actually regulated it in their PSM/RMP standards. Unfortunately, it is just merely listed as one of the areas that have to be covered in the Process Hazard Analysis (PHA). And oh my, have I seen some odd HF analyses and of course, we see a lot of PHAs (and accident investigations) where it is never even mentioned.
CCPS defines “Human Factors” as:
A discipline concerned with designing machines, operations, and work environments so that they match human capabilities, limitations, and needs. Includes any technical work (engineering, procedure writing, worker training, worker selection, etc.) related to the human factor in operator-machine systems.
Professor Dekker recently posted five (5) brief videos that outline his NEW book (3rd Edition) and WOW! This series of videos on “Understanding Human Error” is a MUST watch for ALL safety professionals, especially those who lead incident investigations. It may be the best 55 minutes of video on this vastly misunderstood topic. Professor Dekker’s “Old View” vs. “New View” definitely paints a stark picture of how many companies are still viewing HF concerns and explains the new way of viewing HF.
Check out his 5-part series and if you have not read his books, be sure to check out The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’ (3rd Edition)