A study of equipment failures in the process industries indicates human and organizational errors are the major cause. One in five accidents caused by equipment failures in the chemical process industries is the result of human and organizational errors. Significant factors in equipment failures included: Poor contractor control Failure to follow procedures Lack of planning…...
Can you find the “human factors” issues in these photos? This next photo is not quite as obvious as the one above, but this is an emergency egress hatch for a bus used to shuttle workers at a mine site. Myself and another safety professional were doing a site assessment for them and on the…...
2012 Photo(s) of the Week #44 (PSM Human Factors) Read More »
Identifying human error is a starting point, not a conclusion. If we aim to learn from the error and to lessen the chances of it happening again, we need to consider the organizational context that surrounds the person’s action, including equipment, procedures, people, the environment, and management. There are two aspects to managing error:… Membership...
Errors are both consequences and causes Read More »
We have all heard the term before, but what exactly did OSHA and EPA really mean when they stated that “human factors” must be part of a Process Hazards Analysis (PHA)? In the USA, we can look to OSHA’s PSM Compliance Directive, CPL 02-045, to get an idea of what we should consider “human factors”…...
Process Safety and “Human Factors” (w/ video) Read More »
Another major incident investigation finds serious cultural failures, poor training for operators and emergency responders, poor emergency planning, and technical failures in the Mechanical Integrity program. The crude oil pipeline company’s pervasive organizational failures caused a massive 2010 spill in Michigan, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary investigation has found. The investigation found that…...
Another “Culture” Failure leads to major pipeline incident Read More »
There are only two (2) different types of HUMAN FAILURES: ERRORS (Inadvertent) NON-COMPLIANCE (VIOLATIONS) (Deliberate) A HUMAN ERROR is an action or decision that was not intended, involved a deviation from an accepted standard, and led to an undesirable outcome. A NON-COMPLIANCE (VIOLATION) is a deliberate deviation from a rule or procedure…. Membership Required You...
Causes of Human Failure (Reason’s HF Model) Read More »
People do not err intentionally. Error is a human action that unintentionally departs from expected behavior. Error is behavior without malice or forethought; it is not a result. Human error is provoked by a mismatch between human limitations and environmental conditions at the job site, including inappropriate management and leadership practices and organizational weaknesses that…...
Slips, Lapses, Mistakes, Errors, and Violations (Reason’s HF model) Read More »
The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was developed by Dr. Scott Shappell and Dr. Doug Wiegmann. It is a human error methodology originally used by the US Air Force to investigate and analyze human factors in aviation. Some of you may recognize HFACS in another form, based on James Reason’s Swiss Cheese model. The…...
Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) Read More »
This is intended to be a high-level explanation of an assessment of the human contribution to risk, commonly known as the Human Reliability Assessment (HRA).There are two distinct types of HRA: qualitative assessments that aim to identify potential human failures and optimize the factors that may influence human performance, and quantitative assessments, which, in addition,…...
Conducting a Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) using the Human Error HAZOP Read More »
Dr. Sidney Dekker (Ph.D. in Cognitive Systems Engineering) states there are basically two (2) ways of looking at human error. In this article, I share with you, the first view, which could be called “the bad apple theory“. It maintains that:… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a...
Dr. Dekker’s “Two views on Human Error” Read More »
Key Principles in integrating Human Factors in Hazard Identification, Hazard Analysis, and Risk Assessments include:… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...
Key Principles in integrating Human Factors in Risk Assessments Read More »
The strategic approach to improving human performance within safety embraces two (2) primary challenges: Anticipate, Prevent, Catch, and Recover from ACTIVE errors Identify and Eliminate LATENT organizational weaknesses that provoke human error and degrade controls against error and the consequences of error Preventable errors will not be eliminated if opportunities to err are not methodically…...
The strategic approach to improving Human Performance Read More »
