Citation

Bello GC, Colombari V. Reliab. Eng. 1980; 1(1): 3-14.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1980, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(80)90010-4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The ability to make mistakes is an innate human trait; however, until recently, the ability to spread death and destruction through one's own mistakes has been mainly limited to political men and Generals. Nowadays, there are other individuals capable, when carrying out their work, of making mistakes with exceptionally grave consequences. This is caused by the construction of increasingly larger plant (with consequently higher destructive potentials), to the centralization of controls in one single, or a few, control rooms, and to the fact that many important decisions are concentrated on a few operators. Recent surveys seem to reveal that at least 40% of the total of disastrous events in industrial activities derive from human error. It therefore appears evident that each risk analysis made on systems in which man plays a part, must take possible human error into consideration.

This report is an attempt to suggest data, methodologies and programs for an analysis of human factors in process industries.