Saturday, March 30, 2024
Human performance is an aspect of risk elimination that addresses organizational, leader, and individual performance as factors that either lead to or prevent errors and their events. The objective of human performance is to identify and address human error and its negative consequences on people, programs, processes, the work environment, an organization, or equipment. Studies by high-risk industries indicate that human error is often a root cause of incidents. The premise of this annex is that human error is similarly a frequent root cause of electrical incidents. In occupational health and safety terms, an incident is an occurrence arising in the course of work that resulted in or could have resulted in an injury, illness, damage to health, or a fatality (see ANSI/AIHA Z10-2012, Definition of Incident). The hierarchy of risk control methods identified in this, and other standards is:
(1) Eliminating the hazard
(2) Substituting other materials, processes, or equipment
(3) Using engineering controls
(4) Establishing systems that increase awareness of potential hazards
(5) Setting administrative controls, e.g., training and procedures, instructions, and scheduling
(6) Using PPE, including measures to ensure its appropriate selection, use, and maintenance.
The purpose of these controls is to either reduce the likelihood of an incident occurring or to prevent or mitigate the severity of consequence if an incident occurs. No control is infallible. All of the controls are subject to errors in human performance, whether at the design, implementation, or use phase. E Light has developed processes, procedures and policies to attempt to manage risk in every form on the job site. We all need to work together to identify risks, talk about them and find ways to eliminate them. Understanding the things that lead to mistakes can help eliminate some of those risks. Human performance addresses managing human error as a unique control that is complementary to the hierarchy of risk control methods. We are all human and therefore we can all make mistakes and will make mistakes. Understanding some of these things can help us avoid those mistakes. Here are some things to keep in mind and think about and we will address each of these things over the next few weeks in our safety talks.
(1) People are fallible, and even the best people make mistakes.
(2) Error-likely situations and conditions are predictable, manageable, and preventable.
(3) Individual performance is influenced by organizational processes and values.
(4) People achieve high levels of performance largely because of the encouragement and reinforcement received from leaders, peers, and subordinates.
(5) Incidents can be avoided through an understanding of the reasons mistakes occur and application of the lessons learned from past incidents.
Thank you all for everything that you do and for helping us be safe, productive and produce a product we can all be proud of as we go home safely to our friends and family.
The content of this post is primarily taken from Annex Q of NFPA 70E The Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace.
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