Human Error and Disturbance Occurrence in Manufacturing Systems (HEDOMS): A Framework and a Toolkit for Practical Analysis

Abstract:

New demands on modern manufacturing systems, such as increased flexibility, higher quality standards, customer responsiveness, and higher innovative capacities, have emphasised the need for higher levels of overall system reliability. Within this context disturbances play a critical role, because of the effects they may have on production or on safety, which are both strong determinants of overall system performance. The main focus of this paper is the reliability of manufacturing personnel and the way in which this interrelates with overall system performance. A framework – Human Error and Disturbance Occurrence in Manufacturing Systems (HEDOMS) – integrates human reliability with overall system performance, relating human error with disturbance occurrence and handling. HEDOMS has been extended into a toolkit to enable the identification of potential for human error and disturbance occurrence in manufacturing systems, as well as the definition of suitable error reduction measures.