Proposal of a new methodological approach based on Human Reliability Analysis for improvement safety in the workplace

The importance of safety and ergonomics has grown in these last few years. The newest technology offers the possibility to improve safety and ergonomic levels of products and workplace. At the same time, new risks appear and their control becomes more complicated. Usually, the tradition of ergonomics and safety is to identify problems and to propose redesign of man-machine systems, but this solution has not often been available. Therefore, it is necessary to consider all system variables, particularly referring to the ―human factor‖, in order to make the working scenario clear. In fact, human error is the most important factor influencing safety and its effect, it often exceeds the random deviation. Numerous facts have shown that failures may be caused by the gross error due to human error. Indeed, designing work systems to reduce risks makes safety a major challenge for many organizations. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose an application of a systematic procedure based on CREAM (Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method) to analyze human reliability in order to improve safety and ergonomics in the workplace