Why Does Human Error Occur?

Complex systems require a great deal of human contribution to maintain productivity, quality, and safety. Human error is the inevitable by-product of our necessary involvement in complex systems. To eliminate human error would require us to eliminate the best source of creativity, flexibility, and problem solving ability. Therefore regarding errors, the purpose should be to understand the sources of error, predict when errors are most likely to occur, and predict which errors will lead to the most serious negative outcomes (injury, property/environmental damage, reduced quality). As a result, we can then design or modify the system/job to reduce error, develop personal strategies to reduce individual error, and implement safeguards to mitigate negative outcomes when errors occur.

How can Dutcher SMS help?

Dutcher SMS provides two basic workshops:

1. Designing and Modifying Jobs to Reduce Human Error: Leadership Workshop
   Dutcher SMS helps leaders understand their role in reducing human error in the workplace and how they can support employee teams in developing and sustaining an error reduction process.
    

2. Designing and Modifying Jobs to Reduce Human Error: Activities for Employee Based Teams
   Dutcher SMS helps employee-based teams create and use a process to understand, identify, and reduce workplace error.