Survey of methods used to assess human reliability in the human factors reliability benchmark exercise

• Published in: Reliability engineering & system safety Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 257 - 268
• Main Author: Poucet, A.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 1988; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Fission nuclear power plants; Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy; Human; Safeguard; Human operator; Probabilistic approach; Maintenance; Risk analysis; Modeling; Exploitation; Human error; International cooperation; Ergonomics; Nuclear power plant; Man machine relation; Reliability
• ISSN: 0951-8320; 1879-0836
• DOI: 10.1016/0951-8320(88)90077-4

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has organised a Human Factors Reliability Benchmark Exercise (HF-RBE) with the aim to assess the state-of-the-art in human reliability modelling and assessment. Fifteen teams from eleven countries, representing industry, utilities, licensing organisations and research institutes, participate in the HF-RBE, which is organised around two study cases: (1) analysis of routine functional test and maintenance (T & M) procedures, with the aim to assess the probability of test-induced failures, the probability of failures to remain unrevealed, and the potential to initiate transients because of errors performed in the test; and (2) analysis of human actions during an operational transient, with the aim to assess the probability that the operators will correctly diagnose the malfunctions and take proper corrective action. The paper briefly reports how the HF-RBE was structured and gives an overview of the methods that have been used for predicting human reliability in both study cases. The experience in applying these methods is discussed and the results obtained are compared.