Articles Tagged with ''human error''

Hi, and welcome back. In the last issue, we looked at risk assessments and why our most serious injuries didn’t come from the most dangerous things we’ve done. 

Although it seems to make perfect, intuitive sense that people would get hurt when they are doing the most dangerous things, that isn’t what actually happens to more than 95 percent of us. So, what does this mean in terms of the old risk assessment matrix?

Last issue, we discussed whether it was hazards or is it hazardous energy. The conclusion is that it's really hazardous or potentially hazardous energy… which can move. People can also move, which means that eyes and mind on task are very important, which means that human error is important whenever people are moving or things around them are moving.

This will be a series of short articles designed to provide a different perspective—a paradigm shift -- in terms of how most of you think about industrial safety. And how most of you think about accidental injury causation in general.

Individual oversights and errors can and will eventually lead to unwanted consequences. However, we need multiple checks and balances that limit fallout and the continuance of loss, or possibly, an egregious event.

Whether you use ISO 45001, ANSI Z10, OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program or another management system, there are common elements. The most important are management commitment and leadership, and employee acceptance and participation in the system.

Yes, this is a story about errors - plural - made by one person, me. I’m not going to beat myself up here. James Reason, professor emeritus at the University of Manchester (UK), and one of the seminal authorities on human error, reminds us that most errors are caused by good, competent people who are trying to do the right thing.