Framework for human error quantification

Abstract

Any Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) carried out without an adequate Human Error Quantification and Identification (HECI) process will probably be inaccurate. For accurate complex systems risk assessment, it is critically important that the assessor understands the multifaceted nature of human errors in complex systems and is thus aware of all the different types of human - error contributions which can ultimately make an impact upon a system's risk level. It is also necessary that the assessor be suitably well - armed with a battery of tools with which to identify such error contributions both reliably and comprehensively. This requires a consideration of some of the most adequate taxonomies or classifications of human error. A new generalized HECI framework will then be described in this paper which deals with many different forms of human error at different levels of analysis. This framework and its tools rest heavily upon already existing techniques and ideas, never attempting to put these into a more comprehensive and coherent framework.