Are We Collecting Data, or Are We Learning?
Organisations are rarely short of information. Incident reports, near-miss records, audits, KPIs and procedure reviews can all provide valuable insight. But data only becomes useful when it helps us understand how work is really done, why performance varies, and what needs to change.
A Different Perspective on SCTA: When “Just Enough” Leads to Marginal Losses
We often talk about marginal gains in improving SCTA. This blog explores the other side: marginal losses and how quality can quietly erode over time.
It also looks at what it means to be an intelligent customer of analysis, not just asking “was it done?”, but “how well was it really done?”
Aviation Maintenance and Human Error: A Practical SCTA Case Study
We often think of safety in terms of operations, but maintenance plays an equally critical role.
In this blog, we look at a helicopter maintenance task and explore how Human Factors methods can be used to understand how things could go wrong, and why.
It’s a good reminder that even routine tasks deserve careful attention.
Human Reliability in Pharma: What the Risk Revolution Podcast Got Us Thinking About
Earlier this year, Julie Avery and I joined Valerie Mulholland on the Risk Revolution podcast. The conversation ranged widely, and we came away feeling it had landed on something important.
Beyond the Training Matrix: A Human Factors Approach to Competence Management
Competence management is often treated as a standalone system, separate from risk assessment.
But what if competence standards were derived directly from Human Factors risk analysis?
Intelligent Customer Capability – How Intelligent Do You Actually Need to Be?
If you work on a COMAH site, the HSE expects you to maintain “intelligent customer capability” for human factors. But what does that mean in practice? A degree in ergonomics? A short course? Just enough common sense to ask the right questions?
Human Factors in Major Accident Hazard Regulation and Guidance: A Descriptive Overview
Human Factors are now central to managing major accident risk. But how are they actually embedded in regulation and guidance around the world?
The ONE Thing That Will Actually Improve Your Human Factors Program in 2026
What’s your ONE thing for 2026?
What I have learned is “We’ll implement Human Factors” isn’t a plan. It’s six topics and fifty things pretending to be one.
It’s Time: A Human Factors Delivery Guide for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Quality
The crisis is here. The regulatory gap is costing pharma billions and impacting patients
Data from the OECD shows that drug shortages have been rising since 2019. Many are due to manufacturing issues and product quality deficiencies.
The Railway Men of Bhopal: How Recovery Shaped the Impact of Disaster
Inspired by The Railway Men, this blog uses the Accident Sequence and Precursor (ASAP) model to show how post-incident actions can feed into organisational learning and recovery, helping to build more resilient systems, and why these lessons remain relevant for today’s high-hazard industries.
