There are many ways to define errors. The traditional ways associate the error with the operator's activity, which either triggered an incidence or failed to prevent it.
Typically, the error is a wrong term used to describe operational confusion. Often, the loss is the result of operating in exceptional situations, due to the system complexity ( Perrow, 1984 ).
In this guide, an operational error is a term attributed ad-hoc to a legitimate action, only when the results are undesired ( Hollnagel, 1983 ; Dekker, 2007 ).
Updated on 04 Nov 2016.