| This project is the development of a new textbook on Human Error Reduction and Safety Management. It is an addition to the knowledge and information in two rather specific areas; safety management and human error understanding.;After an examination of the field of safety management, including a look at the current state of the art, an accident causation model is evolved which concentrates on two basic causes of the occupational accident or incident. The two basic causes are identified as system failure and human error.;The model suggests that both causes are an integral part of each occupational accident and that each cause each other. A chapter is devoted to the traditional concept of safety management, including an analysis of system components and system failures as basic underlying causes of injury and property damage in an organization.;The remainder of the text is devoted to human error as the second, and always present underlying cause of occupational injury and property damage.;The project brings together information from a variety of information sources into one textbook for use by the practicing safety professional as well as the student of safety management, industrial hygiene and systems safety. It also is of value to students of management.;Three broad categories of human error are identified and discussed; overload, traps, and decisions to err. Chapters are devoted to each to summarize current available information in these areas. Overload is defined and described as an improper matching of a human being's capacity with the load placed on him in a work setting, taking place in a state. Physical, physiological and psychological overloads are considered. Traps are the human factors problems that lead workers into accidents. Decisions to err looks at the reasons why the choice of unsafe acts is more logical than safe acts in many environments and situations. Decision to err looks at the idea that the decision is often logical, that it is often unconscious (proneness), and that it often is made due to a perception of the probability of the accident occurring as being remote.;There are chapters on each of the above on the kinds of controls management might utilize to help reduce human error. Chapters are included on lower managerial controls, upper managerial controls and staff safety control areas.;This project studied that portion of occupational accidents that are caused by the error making human being. To date, little has been written or researched in this area. The literature in safety management and human error reduction was studied, as well as in organizational behavior and management. Conclusions are presented on the causes of human error and its reduction, with definite steps proposed for various levels of management in an industrial organization. Most organizations currently do little in this aspect of their operations. The conclusion of this project is that there are a number of things that most organizations can currently do to lessen the likelihood of human error leading to accidents. |
