A New Approach to Human Factors Management

This paper proposes a new approach to managing the human factor within an occupational safety management system. The approach is based on viewing the human factor as the interaction between two complex nonlinear dynamic systems: “human characteristics” and “working conditions.” The authors introduce a quantitative assessment of the human factor by comparing the worker’s actual set of abilities–intellectual, sensory, protective, and physical–with the required set of abilities determined by the working conditions.

A model of a personal occupational safety management system has been developed. This system forms part of an individual’s self-management system and is responsible for preserving the worker’s life and health. A method for assessing the effectiveness of this system is also proposed, based on the difference between the actual and required abilities to manage personal occupational safety measures.

Based on the proposed model, a technology for continuous rapid workplace training has been developed. It is aimed at forming sustainable safe-behavior skills among workers. The paper presents an analysis of the results of implementing this technology at industrial enterprises, which demonstrated a 1.5- to 3-fold reduction in occupational injuries over a period of one to two years. It was established that workers displaying a safe type of behavior experience occupational injuries eight times less frequently than those displaying unsafe behavior. The authors conclude that the proposed approach is highly effective in practice as a tool for the large-scale development of safe behavior.

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