Safety Management Systems:

How well is human factors integrated in your Safety Management System (SMS)?

Human error and human performance are often seen as sources of risk within an operation. However, when identifying and assessing risk, the focus should extend beyond human error and human performance, to focus on the factors within the system that may affect human performance and contribute to error.

Risk Management is a core part of a Safety Management System in any safety-critical or high-reliability industry. The SMS provides the information needed by the organisation, to identify and manage risks, and to support effective system and human performance.

Risk assessment is a key part of this process. All safety-critical operations have a degree of risk associated with them. There are hazards and conditions within systems, that can combine in both predictable and unexpected ways to result in an adverse outcome. The aim of HF integration in risk assessment is to identify these sources of human-system risk and put controls in place to manage them.