What are operational errors? What generates them? What are their characteristics? How do we conclude that a particular activity is erroneous?

The need to consider operational errors

Studies about the sources of critical accidents in operating human-made systems indicate that most of them are commonly attributed to errors made by the human operators. Analysis of these incidences indicates that most of them involve operator's difficulties in handling exceptional situations.

Recently developed practices of cognitive engineering enable prevention of some common types of user errors by design. These practices are still not commonly accepted, due to their low face validity.

Disambiguation

In common, daily, speaking and writing, the term error has two meanings:

• Slip: a trigger: an operator's fault, an exceptional, unexpected action, typically unintentionally, followed by an incidence
• Confusion: failure to handle an exceptional situation, following a hazard of any source (functional, external or an internal fault).

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Updated on 03 Jun 2017.