Avoiding human error
A colleague has suggested that you need to make sure you’ve taken precautions to manage “human factors”. What are they, how should you deal with them and in what scenarios are the risks of something going wrong, the greatest?
What are “human factors”?
“Human factors” (HF) is the principle that errors are predictable and preventable and not random “Acts of God”. Whilst there’s a lot of theory behind the scenes that you don’t need to concern yourself with, the basic principles can be very useful to anyone assessing risks or investigating accidents. The study of HFs has shown that different types of error occur depending on what people are doing and the circumstances under which they’re working. By understanding this it is possible to select more effective ways of preventing errors and hence reducing risks.
Simple errors
The simplest type of error involves a competent and experienced person having a minor lack of precision or attention to detail. They may press the “up” button when they want the hoist to go down, or read the temperature gauge on machine A, when they want to know the temperature of machine B etc. These errors occur because they start to work on autopilot.
Tip. This is inevitable behaviour and one that can’t be easily overcome by training or instruction. Rather, designs of systems need to ensure that controls, information displays and procedural steps are arranged in a logical order and clearly labelled, i.e. they need to be able to use things reliably, without thinking too carefully about what they’re doing.
More complex errors
A more complex type of error occurs because people either don’t understand how systems work or they are presented with information that’s misleading or confusing. In these circumstances your staff make the wrong decisions about what they need to do. They may turn up a burner to increase temperature when they’d have been better reducing cooling to the machine. Or they may install the wrong component because they didn’t know which model of equipment they were working on.
Tip. In these cases improved training, both system specific and for more general skills such as diagnosis, can reduce the likelihood of error. Also, reducing fatigue and distractions allows people to concentrate on the job at hand. This increases the likelihood of them making the correct decisions.
Possible scenarios
When carrying out a risk assessment you should consider the potential consequences of the different types of error described above. To help you identify where and in what circumstances these errors might happen, we’ve identified some example scenarios:
• controls, information displays and procedure steps that are arranged illogically or do not follow normal conventions
• complex tasks that are performed at night or the end of a shift when people might be tired
• working environments that are too dark, light, hot or cold
• frequent disturbances
• numerous or wordy rules and procedures
• situations which create high production pressures.
The next step
For a free sample wording to address “human factors” in your risk assessments visit http://healthandsafety.indicator.co.uk (HS 05.06.06).
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