Courses

Everyone makes mistakes, including the most competent and careful people. The useful question is not who made the mistake, but how work can be designed so that error is less likely, easier to detect and less serious. In this course for supervisors, HSE technicians and operational managers, you follow a fictitious company at a gas processing unit. Distinguish the types of error (slips, lapses, rule-based and knowledge-based mistakes) and of violation (routine, situational and exceptional) and understand why error is a symptom and not a cause. Identify the factors that shape performance: fatigue, workload, time pressure, distractions, communication and shift handover, environment, design of equipment and interfaces, competence and experience. Find error traps in a task and write procedures that people can use, with checklists and independent verification, managing the gap between work as prescribed and work as done. Finally, design tasks and equipment for real people: critical tasks, error-proof solutions, labelling and layout, just culture and learning from normal work, in a valve maintenance case. Aligned with UK HSE guidance HSG48 and ISO 6385. Focuses on prevention and the design of work; incident investigation is covered in other courses. Includes a guide to the factors, a guide to procedures and a critical task analysis template. The course is delivered in Portuguese.

What you will learn

• Distinguish slips, lapses, mistakes and violations and explain why they happen.
• Explain why human error is a symptom and why asking for more care is not enough as a control.
• Identify the factors that shape human performance in a real task.
• Identify error traps and improve procedures for the people who use them.
• Apply checklists and independent verification at critical steps and manage the gap between work as prescribed and work as done.
• Design tasks and equipment that reduce the likelihood of error, using critical task analysis and error-proof solutions.

Modules

1. Why people make mistakes56 min
2. Factors that shape performance59 min
3. Error traps and procedures63 min
4. Designing work for real people62 min

Who it is for

Supervisors, HSE technicians and operational managers