Integrating HRA into decision support systems: a new frontier?

The potential contribution of human reliability analysis (HRA) to system operability, safety, and design must not remain the exclusive domain of the nuclear power industry. Likewise, the skills to conduct such analyses should not remain with only a few highly specialized human factors practitioners. Rather, the methodologies, concepts, and information incorporated in HRAs, must be made available to operations and engineering personnel working in highly diverse industrial settings. Two challenges face the HRA practitioners: how to incorporate HRA concepts and methodologies into decision support systems that can proactively advise and forewarn operations personnel of error-prone situations, and how to incorporate HRA findings and methodologies into the initial design of a system.<>