Feedback and the human factor

Structured risk management approaches were first developed in a very systematic way for highly complex technological objects, such as modern aircraft. However, the final result depends not only on the operational safety of the technological objects used, but also on the activities of the people involved. So, as soon as technical progress has led to sufficient control of the risks arising from failures in the technological components of sociotechnical systems, the proportion of failures that are no longer simply attributable to these failures becomes significant, even preponderant, and we have to take responsibility for the operating safety of the sociotechnical system. The decisions and actions of designers, operators, maintainers, and even customers, users, regulators and the management of these players, etc., play as important, if not more important, a role in system reliability than...