Process industries and Human Factors: Where are we

1. Process industries and Human Factors: Where are we?

2. It�s all about us Area that seems poorly understood But a subject matter that will be familiar to most people Definition: �Human factors refers to environmental, organisational and job factors and human and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work in a way which can affect safety�

3. This sets the scene and illustrates why many organisations have reached a plateau with regard to safety performance and are focussing on human factor issues in order to obtain a further step change in improvement. Wasn�t planned like this and is with 20:20 hindsight. One point I would make though is these technology and system driven improvements would not have been possible with a total absence of HF good practice (sometimes called good management)This sets the scene and illustrates why many organisations have reached a plateau with regard to safety performance and are focussing on human factor issues in order to obtain a further step change in improvement. Wasn�t planned like this and is with 20:20 hindsight. One point I would make though is these technology and system driven improvements would not have been possible with a total absence of HF good practice (sometimes called good management)

4. PRISM Human Factors Network Objectives: The improvement of safety in the European process industries trough raising awareness of, and sharing experience in, the application of Human Factors approaches and stimulating their development and improvement to address industry relevant problems in batch and continuous process industries.

5. PRISM Orientation Focus on :

8. Safety Culture: a definition? �The way things are done� �The attitude of staff� �Beliefs, norms and behavioural dispositions that impact on safety�

9. Safety Climate �The concrete way to approach Safety Culture� �The tangible outputs of the Safety Culture as viewed by individual group at a particular point in time� Measurement through surveys, questionnaires.

10. Team working: Definition �A high-performing team of 5-15 people, with the technical skills , knowledge and authority to make decisions that would formerly have been made by a supervisor. They are appointed to manage themselves because the team members are the most familiar with the task they perform, therefore are the best to make improvements.�

11. Team working Strong and positive relationship can exist between self-managed team and safety

12. Behavioural safety: key principles Programme ownership Definition of safe and unsafe behaviours Establishment of a baseline Training Observation Feedback Reinforcement Goal-setting Review

13. Barriers and pitfalls It can take a long time to see the benefits Employees may dislike the idea of observing others and being observed Existing communications can be overloaded with the information produced �

14. Success factors Active participation of workforce and management Issue card reminders and checklists of behaviours that need to be observed Constantly reinforce and encourage behavioural change

16. Optimising Human Performance

17. Procedures and compliance Well known fact: people don�t respect procedures!

18. Procedures

19. Decision Aid

20. Training and competence Training helps people acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes to make them competent in the health and safety aspects of their works.

21. Training

23. Cognitive task load analysis Time occupied Level of information processing Task set switching

24. 3D Cognitive Model

25. The TNO model

26. Why alarm handling?

27. How to face this problem?

28. Benefits Easier to interpret alarms for operators Better control of processes Help avoid accidents

30. �We cannot change the Human Condition but we can change the conditions in which humans work.� James Reason

31. How to incorporate HF in the design process? To take human factors into account as part of the process engineering design process requires the design of: Equipment, Operations, Procedures, Work environments. such that they are compatible with the capabilities, limitations and needs of the workers

32. Procedure to reduce Human Errors within a project

33. Task analysis Identification of the list of human operations performed and their relation to the system task Specification of the systems� manning level Identification of training needs Writing of operating procedures

34. Action error analysis Review of plant safety in case the operator acts wrongly or does not act at all Check of the operators workload in case of demands occurring simultaneously or in fast sequence Review if the operator is able to relate alarm and the cause clearly

35. Performance shaping factors

37. Conclusion No more need to demonstrate that Human Factors improve Safety Which will be the next step?