Is 'human error' ever acceptable as a cause?

Peter Bateman

A reporter with the Rotorua Daily Post has used the OIA to request a dutyholder review completed by a local company after a man was injured while using a lathe. You can read the story here.
The details of the incident aren't important. What struck me were these three paragraphs:

"The review concluded the direct causes of the accident were human error, complacency when completing a task that was not well suited to the lathe, and the worker not having used the lathe in at least six weeks.

"It identified the root causes, which, if added or removed, would have prevented the incident from happening, to be the absence of documented safety procedures for the worker to revise before using the machine, the absence of hazard identification or risk assessment completed on the lathe, the lack of controls such as guards or signage around the lathe and that the lathe was left out of the bi-annual safe machinery audit.

"Additional possible causes identified in the review included a lack of understanding and instruction, fatigue, dietary options (energy drinks) and the injured worker's arrogant attitude."

Whew! That covers just about every possible cause and then some. But I'm intrigued: is it still acceptable in 2018 to cite "human error" as a cause of an incident? Or the operator's alleged attitude?

I don't think so. What do you think?

Peter Bateman

The problem is that concluding "human error" caused an incident begs far too many additional questions.
Humans make errors. That is why it is called "human error". Errors are inevitable and are made every day.
A better approach is to say: I know the people working in Department X will make errors, because they are human. There are some dangerous machines or processes or chemicals used in Department X, so I know the consequences of those errors could be seriously harmful. Therefore, how can the work be designed, in collaboration with those people, so that their inevitable errors cannot result in significant harm?
That puts the onus back where it belongs - on management - to assist the people who face the risks in designing out the possibility that harm could arise from error.
So any organisation which concludes "human error" was the cause of an injury is just flagging its own failure to manage risk.

Peter Bateman

A human making an error is not a 'cause'. It is something that happens frequently in everyday work. The question to ask is: how is the work designed so that when the inevitable human errors happen no one gets hurt? That is a much harder question but one that every manager needs to address.

Peter Bateman

↪Simon Lawrence

Test response.

Is 'human error' ever acceptable as a cause?

Welcome to Safeguard Online!

Categories