Energy Institute launches guidance on safety critical tasks 07 September 2011

New guidance is now available from The Energy Institute (EI) and DNV (Det Norske Veritas) on managing human factors in the analysis of safety critical tasks.

Although the importance of human failures in causing accidents is well known, historically analysis of technical failures in major accident hazard safety reports has dominated over human failures.

There are signs that this is changing, with more human factors analyses being conducted, and regulators responding to public concerns about proactive risk management.

The problem to date, however, according to Dr Edward Smith, principal consultant at DNV, is that there has been a lack of information to help those without a human factors background carry out deeper analysis of safety critical tasks.

"Preparing this guidance with the EI has been a great opportunity to present human factors safety critical task analysis to a wider audience and to show its value," states Smith.

"The document describes how this type of analysis can help us better manage risks related to human factors in a cost-effective manner," he adds.

Published under the auspices of the EI's Human and Organisational Factors Committee (HOFCOM), the new publication provides a seven-step methodology for conducting safety critical task analysis. It also give useful case study material, supporting practical tools, and examples of good and bad practice.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
DNV-GL
Energy Institute

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