Performance shaping factors in the human error probability modification of human reliability analysis

Abstract

Human-induced accidents indicate the importance of human reliability analysis (HRA) in reducing and eliminating human errors, thus improving the reliability of human–machine systems. HRA takes both qualitative and quantitative approaches to determine the error of the operators and the contexts in which tasks are performed. To ensure that HRA results can objectively evaluate human error behaviors, the quantification of human error probability (HEP) is typically based on the qualitative analysis of human factors and task contexts and is further refined by performance shaping factors (PSFs). A good HEP process development includes the selection of PSFs, the evaluation of PSFs and the quantification strategy of HEP. A variety of HEP quantification analyses based on PSFs has been widely adopted in contemporary HRA studies. This work reviews three major quantification strategies used in HRA methods. Additionally, we generalize the modification of HEP with PSFs into a paradigm.

Keywords:

• human error probability
• human reliability analysis
• task context
• performance shaping factors

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the two anonymous referees for providing constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71171008], [grant number 71571004]; China Scholarship Council; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.