3579 Guidance on human factors in task-based risk assessment

human-and-organisational-factors
  • Published: January 2025
  • REF/ISBN: 9781787254572
  • Edition: 1st

Overview:

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Although human factors and error-producing conditions may be considered during project-level risk assessments and for the most hazardous tasks (e.g. as part of fulfilling COMAH-related regulatory requirements, see frequently asked questions below), they are often ignored in the more 'everyday' task-based risk assessments conducted as part of work planning – including job safety analysis, permit to work, etc. - despite the fact that error-producing conditions can be identified and managed at these stages.

Unfortunately, the lack of consideration of human factors at the work planning stage has resulted in tragic incidents and fatalities, such as a fatal steam release when contractors performed maintenance on the wrong part of a plant.

This guide is intended for non-human factors specialists, particularly those responsible for risk assessment processes and those who conduct task-based risk assessments, including supervisors, frontline workers, and managers.  It provides useful tools and techniques to ensure that human factors are considered during work planning, and are performed before, during, and after work. These can be built into the existing risk assessment and work planning processes your organisation is already using.

The guide includes:

− Step-by-step instructions for performing modified risk assessments that consider not only hazards but also error-producing conditions.

− Tools and techniques that supervisors and frontline workers can use to consider human factors during pre-job briefings, during the job, and post-job briefings, as well as tools and techniques to improve hazard awareness.

− Guidance for leadership on how to implement these tools and techniques into the organisation.

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Frequently asked questions

Q: Does this guidance help organisations to fulfil relevant legal requirements to manage major accident hazard (MAH) safety critical tasks?

A: Since publication, it has come to our attention that users would like clarification on how EI 3579 helps organisations to manage major accident hazard (MAHs) safety critical tasks, and how it can be used to fulfil relevant legal obligations in the UK, Brazil and other jurisdictions, for example the UK’s Control of major accident hazard (COMAH) regulations, and as documented in Health and Safety Executive (HSE) COMAH Competent Authority Delivery Guide: Inspecting human factors at COMAH establishments.

Following EI 3579 would not ensure compliance with legal requirements to manage MAHs.  This is because it does not use an appropriate systematic method to identify, analyse, and manage MAHs with the rigour or expertise that an approach like safety critical task analysis (SCTA) requires. SCTA (as documented in EI 3201 Guidance on human factors safety critical task analysis) would examine thoroughly how a task is impacted by performance influencing factors so error can be eliminated through design or mitigated through elements of the safety management system, resulting in perpetual changes to minimise risk . SCTA is not used as a planning tool to evaluate the risk of performing a task on a particular day, and would therefore not detect changes to the individual, team, processes, environment or equipment that introduce risk. EI 3579 assumes that human reliability analysis has already been completed for MAH safety critical tasks. For all tasks at any site, EI 3579 supports the management of gaps in traditional job safety risk assessments where both process safety and personal safety hazards are commonly missed due to the job as imagined not reflecting the job as actually being done on the day.

Therefore the practices described in this document can supplement existing risk assessment processes and are not intended as a substitute for formal human reliability analysis or any other risk assessment such as hazard and operability studies (HAZOP), hazard identification studies (HAZID) or layers of protection analysis (LOPA).

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