Supervision and Safety of Complex Systems

PART 4Human, Organizational and EnvironmentalFactors in Risk Analysis

 

The analysis of accidents and incidents in complex systems shows how organizational, human, technical and environmental dimensions are independent. The different components of complex systems are sufficiently secure that a single failure will lead to a serious incident. Accidents not incidents are the result of a combination of more or less serious factors influencing these four dimensions. It is therefore necessary to have access to tools and methods that allow us to analyze these four families of factors. These tools must allow us to identify conjunctions between serious factors in technical and human systems that could weaken the “defense” system.

The MARATHON project aims to deal with this issue. Its methodological framework allows us to examine the system on three levels: organizational, technical and actions (i.e. human operators). The SOMAIR project (the role of the “human– machine system” interface in integrated risk analysis) focuses on actions by examining the influences of these levels.