Acta Mechanica Slovaca 2016, 20(4):12-19 | DOI: 10.21496/ams.2016.028

The Need to Consider the Complexity of Human Behaviour when Engineering Technical Systems for Risk Prevention

Sebastian Festag
Hekatron, Head of Applied Science, Wuppertal University, Germany

Safety science pursues the aim of preventing or reducing as much as possible damage caused by hazards, on a methodical and systematic basis. An important part of this is safety engineering, which deals with the hazards of socio-technical systems. Safety engineering has successfully established itself and differentiated into many fields. All areas of our lives involve questions of hazards, so safety science and safety engineering must continually develop in the course of time. Each dangerous situation has its special and general characteristics. The human factor is a general subject and plays an important role in virtually all hazards and is decisive for the functioning of socio-technical systems. In previous eras, hazards by technical systems were frequently the result of failure of materials or components. The majority of safety problems in the current situation are related to human beings. This is not due to the "deficiency" of human beings, however, but is rather a result of ignoring the complexity of their behaviour in the engineering of (technical) systems. This situation is explained in the present article on the basis of studies dealing with the cause-analysis of hazards in the context of different technical systems.

Keywords: Human behaviour, human factor, complexity, socio-technical systems, final closure of a production-site, false alarms, installed fire detection and fire alarms systems

Published: October 31, 2016  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Festag, S. (2016). The Need to Consider the Complexity of Human Behaviour when Engineering Technical Systems for Risk Prevention. Acta Mechanica Slovaca, 20(4), 12-19. doi: 10.21496/ams.2016.028
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Compes, P.C., 1980, Erwartungen der Sicherheitstechnik an die Humanwissenschaft. [Safety Engineering's Expectations of Human Science] In 2. GfS-Sommer-Symposion: Der Mensch als Sicherheitsproblem in technischen Systemen [At the 2nd GfS Summer Symposium: Humans as a Safety Problem in Technical Systems] (p. 57-78). University of Wuppertal - Gesamthochschule Wuppertal: Gesellschaft für Sicherheitswissenschaft
    2. Ritz, F., 2015, Betriebliches Sicherheitsmanagement - Aufbau und Entwicklung widerstandsfähiger Arbeitssysteme [Company safety management - Structure and development of robust work systems], Stuttgart: Schäffer-Poeschel Verlag
    3. Festag, S., 2015, Menschliches Verhalten und Risikokompetenz - Fallanalysen [Human Behaviour and Risk Competence - Case Analyses]. In: Sebastian Festag & Uli Barth (Editor): Risikokompetenz: Beurteilung von Risiken [Risk competence: Risk Assessment]. Schriften der Schutzkommission - Band 7. Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe [Report of the Safety Commission - Vol. 7, German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Control], p. 241-252
    4. Festag, S., 2014, Analyse von Unfallursachen und das Kausalitätsproblem [Analysis of accident causes and the problem of causality]. In: Sebastian Festag (Editor): Unfallursachenanalyse [Accident cause analysis]. XXVIV. Sicherheitswissenschaftliches Symposion der Gesellschaft für Sicherheitswissenschaft. Allgemeine Unfallversicherung Österreich, Forum Prävention, Innsbruck (Austria), 21.05.2014, Berlin: Beuth-Verlag, p. 1-14
    5. AK-MF, 2011, Kompetenzen bezüglich menschlicher Faktoren im Rahmen der Anlagensicherheit (Betreiber, Behörden und Sachverständige). [Responsibilities relating to human factors in the context of plant safety (Operators, authorities and experts)] Leitfaden des Arbeitskreises Menschliche Faktoren der Kommission für Anlagensicherheit beim Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Natur- und Reaktorsicherheit, [Guidelines of the Human Factors Work Group of the Commission for Plant Safety at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety], Bonn, p. 27
    6. Fahlbuch, B., Meyer, I., Dubiel, J., 2008, Einfluss menschlicher Faktoren auf Unfälle in der verfahrenstechnischen Industrie [Influence of human factors on accidents in process industry]. Bericht, Im Auftrag des Umweltbundesamtes [Report, on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency], Forschungsbericht 206 48 300, UBA-FB 001128, Dessau-Roßlau
    7. Hartwig, S., 07/2007, Safety gets real. The Chemical Engineer, Vol. 7, Issue. 793, p. 34-35
    8. Festag S., 2012, Systemsicherheit und menschlicher Faktor: Über das Versagen von Strategien zur Risikobewältigung [System Safety and Human Factor: On the Failure of Risk-Reduction Strategies]. Dissertation, University Wuppertal
    9. Festag S., Hartwig S., 2016, Consequences of ignoring the complexity of human behaviour for industrial safety and security, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 48, 919-924 DOI:10.3303/CET1648154
    10. Festag S., 2016, False Alarm Ratio of Fire Detection and Fire Alarm Systems in Germany - A Meta-Analysis. Fire Safety Journal, Volume 79, Elsevier, pp. 119-126 (DOI: 10.1016/j.firesaf.2015.11.010) Go to original source...
    11. Döbbeling, E.P., Festag, S., Witzigmann, M., 8/2012, Brandschadenstatistik zur Wirksamkeit anlagentechnischer Brandschutzmaßnahmen [Fire loss statistics for the effectiveness of fire protection technologies]. VFDB, Ausgabe 3, S. 123-127
    12. Schmitz, D., 2013, Untersuchung zur Bestimmung der Größenordnung von Falschalarmierungen von Brandmeldeanlagen [Study to determine the size scale of false alarms of installed fire detection and fire alarm systems]. Bachelor thesis, University Wuppertal
    13. Festag, S., Schmitz, D., 8/2014, Bestimmung der Falschalarmrate von Brandmeldeanlagen [Determination of the Rate of False Alarms by Automated Fire Alarm Systems]. VFDB, 3/2014, pp. 134-141
    14. Gigerenzer, G., 2008, Bauchentscheidungen - Die Intelligenz des Unbewussten und die Macht der Intuition [Emotional decisions - The intelligence of the unconscious and the power of intuition], Goldmann Verlag: Munich
    15. Hartwig, S., 10/2012, Kollektives Sicherheitsversagen - Vom Managementverhalten induzierte Common-Mode-Fehlersituationen in Industrie und Politik [Collective safety failure - common-mode failure situations induced by management behaviour in industry and politics]. Technische Sicherheit, 10, pp. 26-31

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content