Contribution of human factors to incidents in the petroleum refining industry

Human factors consider how effectively and safely personnel interact with p rocesses. It can cover a variety of issues, from facility design to procedu res to overall management systems. In order to minimize human factors as po tential causes for incidents, the causal relationship of human factors to s afety incidents must be understood. An examination of previous incidents an d incident investigations can provide valuable insight into the types of hu man factors that most often contribute to human error and, ultimately, to l oss events. The contribution of human factors to previous incidents in the U.S. petrole um refining industry are described in this paper. First, the data collectio n effort, which resulted in the documentation of over 130 incidents that oc curred during the past 8 years, is examined. Next, the analysis approach is discussed, including a description of the characterization scheme used to identify cause-contribution factors with specific incidents. Lastly, the re sults of the analysis are presented and valuable insights into the most com mon contributors are discussed.