Human Factors and Countermeasures
Introduction
For years, training courses have centred on identifying the human factors behind operator errors. Unfortunately, the focus stops there – without offering concrete solutions to prevent or mitigate these issues.
What is missing is the essential countermeasures
Understanding human errors
We’ve all heard it: “It’s just human error.” The assumption often being that there’s nothing we can do about it. However, it’s critical to understand that human error isn’t one-size-fits-all. It actually falls into several categories –
🔆Slips, lapses, mistakes, and violations
🔆Skill-based, rule-based, and knowledge-based errors
When a nonconformity or quality issue occurs due to human error, it’s easy to point fingers. But the real question is: “what’s the deeper root cause?” These underlying issues – called ‘human factors’ – are the key to understanding why such errors happen in the first place.
Understanding human factors
To uncover these human factors, techniques like the 5-Whys can be a good start, but they work even better when combined with ‘models’ that look at human factors from different perspectives. Some well-known frameworks include –
🔆IAQG’s Human Factors Cause ‘Codes’
🔆The PEAR Model
🔆SCMH Human Factors Categories
🔆The Dirty Dozen
Understanding countermeasures
Once you’ve identified the human factors at play, you need effective 'countermeasures' to address them. This requires a multi-faceted approach, including –
🔆Practical psychology (CBT, motivation, feedback systems)
🔆Physical devices (poka-yoke, Jidoka, TPM, augmented reality)
🔆Predictive methods (P-Diagrams, DFMEA, PFCs, PFMEA, etc.)
TEC’s new course, “Human Factors & Countermeasures”, covers all of these approaches, specifically for production and design organizations.
Available as 2-day Face-to-Face or 16-hour e-Learning options, the course offers valuable insights into how aerospace and defence organizations can develop, implement, and maintain processes to tackle human factors with effective countermeasures – both reactively and proactively.
Let’s move beyond human error, focus on the human factors and create effective countermeasures.