Critical control optimisation
All controls are not equal. Some are highly vulnerable to human error, and many require special attention to achieve their intended purpose. That’s why we developed a Control Health Assessment (CHA) framework. Applying this methodology allows us to more accurately diagnose weaknesses and opportunities in your control architecture, and how to improve it.
Context
of simple routine tasks are likely to involve a human error
of complex tasks requiring high levels of skill are likely to involve a human error
Impact
of critical controls are procedural (purely behavioural)
of absent or failed critical controls were completely reliant on perfect worker behaviour and decision-making (when SIFp incidents occurred)
Reducing human error to improve control success
Human reliability is key to effective control management. The challenge is reducing human error. Research tells us that organisations should:
- Pay closest attention to specific controls most vulnerable to poor implementation.
- Continually look to redesign controls to be less reliant on worker behaviour.
What is the CHA framework?
Incident Analytics has reviewed the control design and effectiveness for leading high hazard organisations across industries for many years. This has led to the unique development of our evidence-based approach to analysing control effectiveness.
1. Control design
covers these types of controls:
- Permanent (physical)
- Exposure-triggered (physical)
- Technical (behavioural)
- Procedural (behavioural)
2. Control function
addresses controls that:
- Prevent or minimise existence of energy/hazard
- Prevent or minimise release of energy/hazard
- Create separation or provide protection
- Ensure detection and minimise impact of event
This analytical framework facilitates an accurate assessment of relative strengths and weaknesses of controls as they are defined within an organisation’s safety management system. What that means is that we are able to formulate specific strategies to manage and improve the reliability of different controls, and measure improvement (via corrective actions and control redesign) in the overall control architecture.
Learnings that inform our approach
When we analysed serious event (SIFp) control failures, over 96% of failed or absent controls were behavioural, where the worker was expected (or should have) implemented a control in a particular way, and for several possible reasons, didn’t.
Two-thirds of these control situations involved the worker using his/her cognitive and/or physical faculties (procedural) to maintain a safe situation.
The other one-third (technical) involved the improper or absent use of equipment designed to detect or manage an undesirable energy or hazard.
Procedural controls usually have a very high level of enablement by the organisation (85%+) but are almost twice as likely to fail compared with Technical controls.
Success Story
Improving Health of Critical Controls in Mining Operation
Leading mining operator sought to enhance the effectiveness of specific critical controls and design more resilient working systems to minimise exposure of high-risk tasks to critical controls that were exposed human reliability.
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