Developments and perspectives in human factor engineering: a critical analysis

Abstract

Human dysfunctions must be given special attention, because the human operator represents the central element of safety. The human operator is targeted in a double position: both as a potential victim of an accident and as a source of insecurity or guarantor of safety. Consequently, the modeling of human behavior plays a role of primary importance in the analysis of related dysfunctions and in the integration of the results of this analysis in the global assessment of any work system. Although a large percentage of accidents are attributed to human error, the integration of human contribution into the safety of technical systems is often rudimentarily analyzed in industrial engineering. The focus is on reliability, availability, maintenance and especially security. Starting from the exact radiography of this factual reality, the present research materialized a critical analysis of the evolution of the available techniques for assessing human reliability, highlighting and emphasizing their strengths and limitations, from an evolutionary perspective. The results obtained provide Romanian experts with a realistic and scientifically based landscape, which would be the basis of concrete strategies and measures to minimize the dysfunctions associated with the human factor in industrial manufacturing activities, with the possibility of expanding the applicability of the results in other types of organizations affected by human fallibility.

Keywords

• human factor engineering
• human reliability analysis
• performance shaping factors
• human error probability
• probabilistic risk assessment
• cognition
• safety culture