Human Reliability analysis
FINAL REPORT SECTIONS
Week 2
Final Report
The report should be written similar to a grant proposal to a major funding agency
Reviewers of the proposal are not expected to be HRA experts or domain experts. Therefore, don’t assume any knowledge.
i.e., a high level executive at an organization
Consider this report being handed over to your boss to justify performing a HRA on a particularly high risk activity
Why should I care about this problem?
What is HRA?
Why should I care about HRA?
Hasn’t this already been done before?
How exactly does this work?
Will it improve something?
What are the required resources?
Introduction
Section 1
Final Report Sections
Section 1: Introduction (2pts)
Problem Statement – what is the human error, why is it important, and why hasn’t someone found a solution previously?
Relevance to HRA – why is HRA an appropriate tool to study this problem?
Project Focus – what aspect of the problem will you focus on?
Project Goals – what do you hope to gain from this HRA?
Additional Notes:
Refer to HW#2 justification
Include support to justify importance for the problem AND focus
High Level Topic
Lack of knowledge of recycling rules
Topic Focus
Topic : When, how and why do
recycling errors occur?
Human-System and Human-Artifact
Specific focus on remembering and
applying information on product
categories (training and existing
knowledge)
Theoretical Focus
Low Level Cognition (memory)
Literature Review
Section 2
Final Report Sections
Section 2: Literature Review (3 pts)
Overview of 1st and 2nd Generation methods
Detail of each method is not necessary
Provide background for the field of HRA
Prior methodological and domain specific work – Discuss advantages and disadvantages (limitations) of prior work.
Prior work (not necessarily HRA) in your application domain (aerospace, healthcare, defense, etc.) to address the problem.
Prior work (not necessarily HRA) to address your problem in other application domains. This should include general work to address problems associated with your theoretical focus in other domains.
Final Report Sections
Section 2: Literature Review (3 pts)
Additional Notes
Prior work in the domain should cover any attempts to explore your focus of human
failure outside of HRA.
Expect that an HRA has not been performed previously for your application. Therefore,
stating that fact is not sufficient to address this report requirement
For example, if you’re studying cognitive load in maintenance environment, maybe physical
maintenance slips have been studied before in this domain but not from the perspective of
sensory processing
Prior work in other application domains.
For example, if you’re studying cognitive load in maintenance environments, maybe that has
not been addressed previously, but it has been addressed in other domains (driving, etc.)
Literature Review Recycling Example
Prior methodological and domain specific work – Discuss advantages and disadvantages (limitations) of prior work.
Prior work (not necessarily HRA) in your application domain (aerospace, healthcare, defense, etc.) to address the problem. No prior HRAs in recycling decisions, but…
Research in perception of recycling social benefits and impact on behavior
Research in effectiveness of green education programs on recycling decisions
Prior work (not necessarily HRA) to address your problem in other application domains. This should include general work to address problems associated with your theoretical focus in other domains. General research in the area of training performance and memory retrieval based on
training format
General research in the area of training validity for multiple attribute decision making
Theoretical Focus
Section 3
Final Report Sections
Section 3: Theoretical Focus (4 pts)
Theory development
Provide background on each theory. Link theories to the scope of the problem focus. Adhere to HW#3 requirements.
Theory Interaction
Describe the interaction between theories.
Additional Notes
HW #3. Update if there were major theoretical changes
Similar to the grading of HW #3, points will be deducted if you do not show you have an understanding of the theory beyond the lecture bullet points.
Cite scholarly literature
Recycling Example
Topic Focus Further Developed
Topic : When, how and why do
recycling errors occur?
Human-System and Human-Artifact
Specific focus on remembering and
applying information on product
categories (training and existing
knowledge)
Theories
Long term memory processing (foundation)
Similarity matching
Frequency effect
Recency effect
Recycling Example
Topic Focus Further Developed
Encoding
• STM – Primarily visual
• LTM – Primarily semantic (meaning), but also visual and acoustic
Storage
• STM – Sequential storage
• LTM – Stored using association
Retrieval
• STM – Sequential retrieval
• LTM – Retrieval using association
input output
Final Report Sections
Section 4: HRA Components (6 pts)
Task Analysis – Adhere to HW#4 requirements. Develop a cognitive task analysis and justify the content and formatting (hierarchical, procedural,
both).
Provide a textual or diagrammatic representation of the process driven by the theoretical foundation.
Justify the formatting, flow, taxonomy verbs, and cognitive theoretical scope of the task analysis.
Unsafe Acts – Adhere to HW #5 requirements. Develop a comprehensive list of unsafe acts for your problem categorized by Reason’s Error
Classification. The unsafe acts should be linked to each task.
Justify the selection of the UAs and the link to the theoretical focus.
PSFs – Adhere to HW #5 requirements. Develop a list of PSFs linked to the unsafe acts. Describe each PSF and justify the link to each UA.
Summary Table – Adhere to HW #5 requirements.
Final Report Sections
Section 4: HRA Components (6 pts)
Additional Notes
HW #4 and #5 integration. Update if there were major changes. Address HW
requirements for any updates.
Written justification is the most important piece of this section
Recycling Example
Task Analysis
Actions take place predominantly on
Bloom’s taxonomy lower levels
Knowledge – Remember info
Comprehension – Understand info
Application – Use of rules to apply info
Recycling Example
Task Analysis
Start 1. Encode the
meaning of
product rules
Comprehension
2. Store
product rules
Knowledge
3. Retrieve
product rules
Knowledge
4. Apply rules
Application
End
Recycling Example
Task Analysis
1. Encode the meaning
of product rules Expansion of Task 1
Comprehension
1.2 Associate
characteristics with
rules
Comprehension
1.1 Identify
product
characteristics
Comprehension
Recycling Example
Task Analysis
3. Retrieve product rules Expansion of Task 3
Knowledge
3.2 Associate
existing rules with
current
characteristics
Comprehension
3.1 Recall
instances of
characteristics
Comprehension
3.1.1 Recall frequency of prior characteristics
3.1.2 Recall similarity of prior characteristics with
current characteristics
Plan 3.1: Do 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 in any order
Recycling Example
Task Analysis
4. Apply rules Expansion of Task 4
4.1 Choose disposal category
4.2 Choose disposal technique
Plan 4: Do 4.1 and 4.2 in
any order
Application
Unsafe Acts
Develop a comprehensive list of unsafe acts for your problem
categorized by Reason’s Error Classification. The unsafe acts
should be linked to each task.
Justify the selection of the UAs and the link to the theoretical
focus.
Recycling Example
Unsafe Acts
1.1 Identify product characteristics
Recycler does not have prior experience– RBM
Not identifiable through sensory input – RBM
1. 2 Associate characteristics with rules
Recycler did not receive appropriate training – RBM
Recycler does not remember training – SBM
Recycling Example
Unsafe Acts
3.1.1 Recall frequency of prior characteristics
Product categories are disproportionally represented in memory – SBM
Events that occurred in distant memory are forgotten – SBM
3.1.2 Recall similarity of prior characteristics with current characteristics
Recycler is unable to link similar characteristics because materials have changed over time – RBM
Similarity matching is confused by product categories with several types of materials – RBM
3.2 Associate existing rules with current characteristics
Regulations have changed and the rules are no longer valid – RBM
The rules are still valid, but are applied to the wrong product category – RBM
The rules have been incorrectly formed – RBM
Recycling Example
Unsafe Acts
4.1 Choose disposal category
A disposal option is not available- RBM
A new disposal category is presented that confused the recycler – RBM
4.2 Choose disposal technique
Recycler does not know how to implement disposal category–
KBM/RBM
Recycler knows how to implement the disposal category but does
not have the necessary tools – RBM
PSFs
Develop a list of PSFs linked to the unsafe acts. Describe each PSF and
justify the link to each UA.
Notes:
Each UA should have a PSF
PSFs overlap for each UA is expected, but too much repetition is indicative of PSFs that are
too high level
Recycling Example
PSFs
Task Unsafe Act PSF
1.1 Identify product characteristics Recycler does not have prior
experience– RBM
• Level of experience with
recyclable products
Not identifiable through sensory
input – RBM
• Level of product cleanliness
• Salience of product material
characteristics
• Product size
1.2 Associate characteristic with
rules
Recycler did not receive
appropriate training – RBM
• Level of access to training
• Quality of training
Recycler does not remember
training – SBM
• Level of access to training
• Quality of training
• Experience applying training
Recycling Example
PSFs
Task…
