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Organisational Mechanics

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You Had One Job!

8 February, 2024 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

laundrette

Design Error I’m in the doghouse. Mrs Lawther asked me to do the washing whilst she was out. As I am a modern man and expect to do my bit, I was happy to comply with the request. Unfortunately, there was a complication. The washing included my wife’s very chic and expensive dress. Ordinarily, this […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: culture, design error, error proofing, fail safe, feedback, human error, mental models, simplicity, usability testing, visual management

Risk Compensation

3 January, 2023 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Using "shared space" to avoid risk compensation.

Understanding Risk Compensation — Because Error Proofing Isn’t Enough Road safety is an excellent example of a system where many have tried to change the public’s behaviour and stop things from going wrong. Error proofing is a common approach, making things easy to get right and difficult to get wrong, but it isn’t without its […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: accident prevention, continuous improvement, error proofing, human nature, perceived risk, process control, risk assessment, risk compensation

Operational Controls

13 June, 2022 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Poor Operational Control Caused DC Metro Train Crash

Operational Controls are Worthless if They Aren’t Maintained At approximately 5 pm on Monday 22nd June 2009, a Washington Metro train heading towards Shady Grove smashed into the rear of the train ahead of it. The Automatic Train Control system had instructed the train to travel at full speed (55 mph). When the driver of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: automation, business process management, checklist, continuous improvement, controls, error proofing

Reducing Complexity

4 May, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Avoiding Overwhelm In their book Meltdown, Clearfield and Tilcsik show how complicated systems fail.  They discuss nuclear accidents, financial disasters and medical mishaps and show how we can avoid disasters by reducing complexity. The more complex our systems become, the less easy they are to understand. So they become harder to fix when they break. Add […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: accident prevention, aviation, communication, complexity, data is not information, data presentation, error proofing, graphical user interface, less is more

Preventing Human Error

18 April, 2020 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The oscar that became a case study in preventing human errors

A Problem with the envelope On February 26th 2017, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its 89th award ceremony, celebrating the best films of 2016. The ceremony was a case study in preventing human error (or not depending on your perspective). It went swimmingly until the very last award for best picture. Faye Dunaway […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, accountability, blame, clarity, data presentation, error proofing, risk assessment, simplicity

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