Human Performance Improvement Activities for Risk Reduction
Authors: Ujita Hiroshi , Matsuo Naoko 
Published: June 2022

Inflexible or unchangeable organization is clearly supposed to include fatal risk in the system under current highly and fast developing situation, no matter how its size is. It means that any system doesn't reach the best results even if anyhow behavior's done, being not adjustable for risk reduction, due to variety and change in the system design or the organization decision-making. Namely, the Key for “the most rational optimization along with keeping the development” is actualized by using risk management adjustable to all organization or system, to solve the complicated issues struggling in current fast-changing international situation.System safety in a huge complex system is an activity that aims to improve safety by the balanced system without excess or deficiency by designing (hardware / software) and operating (human) [1]. In other words, it is the risk reduction activities to treat from the top priority of the risk. At present, the existing huge complex systems have been reduced in hardware / software risk through its countermeasures and quality assurance activities based on safety logic, so the remaining risk can be said to be an event involving humans. For this reason, risk reduction activities can be described as human performance improvement activities. Furthermore, continuing this activity will eventually lead to the improvement of the safety culture. In other words, what we want to emphasize here is that "system safety", "risk reduction activities", "human performance improvement activities", and "improvement of safety culture" have similar purposes and contents.In order to reduce the risk, it must be firmly suppressed in the original design process, so the safety concept is thoroughly incorporated into the system based on risk management at the design stage before operation. Next step, implement risk reduction measures are considered based on risk management at the construction or operation stages. As a response to the problem that remains even after taking measures in advance, that is, a risk that occurs at the stage of using equipment or processes, an error is detected and the countermeasure is taken. Therefore, we will first understand the vulnerabilities at the time of implementation and the weaknesses in human relationships between organizations and teams. As countermeasures, it is most important to give feedback to the hardware, next to software, and when it is not possible, it is important to take countermeasures by the organization or team, not to blame the individual. Measures against human errors are implemented by the devices and the mechanisms rather than the discipline. In summary, it is necessary to enhance performance for dealing with problems that are anticipated in advance, and then to enhance error detection that remains even after setup.Humans always make an error with a certain probability, but they are also flexible entities that can respond to ingenuity in any event. HPI, Human Performance Improvement is a system safety activity to reduce risk due to the human behavior in the system by understanding and optimizing human characteristics by using the Cause Analysis and the Risk Analysis. While humans can demonstrate high abilities, they have the characteristic that misrecognition and judgment errors are easy to occur in some circumstances. In such situation, HPI tools such as Tool Box Meeting, Peer Review, etc. are useful for preparing high reliable activities at the site. HPI means creating the environment where human abilities can be maximized. References[1] Ujita, H., Matsuo, N.: ‘System Safety, Risk Management, and Human Performance Improvement’, HCI2020, 2020.7, Virtual.