Human error and response to alarms in process safety

Abstract

Human operators are required to respond to alarms in normal conditions, and also to find solutions to unexpected situations in real time. The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge of human responses to alarms in the context of occupational situations. It describes how humans contribute to accidents, and pays special attention to the assurance of process safety assurance, which is in part realized by timely reactions to system alarms. An experiment involving an operator´s reaction times to alarm signals was undertaken to investigate whether there are differential responses to visual as opposed to auditory alarms. The findings in the research show that visual alarm indicators are perceived faster than auditory signals. Furthermore, there was a significant negative correlation between the number of errors and reaction time, indicating an individual difference in error-proneness when reacting to visual alarms in a supervisory task.

Keywords

• alarms
• auditory signal
• visual signal
• human error
• process safety
• reaction time