With the growing application of the HEART human reliability assessment methodology to the high risk process industries, it is becoming apparent that there are further refinements that potential users would like to have available from within the technique. Analysts are interested in achieving high repeatability, greater precision in modelling dependent events, and further insight into issues such as time available for task execution, the potential for cognitive and conceptual error, job design effects and maintenance strategies. In addition, although analysts already find the method to be of some considerable assistance, they are now seeking further enlightenment as to the more fundamental nature of the technique, and are seeking to extend its use in a number of important respects. This paper discusses HEART (Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique) and the recent advances that are being made in making this method still more usable. (A)
Abstract