Why your life and well-being are at the mercy of our field of research and practice: The vital role of human factors and ergonomics in safety and reliability of nuclear, petrochemical, aviation, railroad, and healthcare industries

Professor Meshkati’s interdisciplinary research for the last quarter of century has primarily been concerned with the risk reduction and reliability enhancement of complex human-organizational-technological systems such as nuclear power plants, chemical processing plants, refineries, aviation and space, and (for the last ten years) healthcare systems. A characteristic common to these systems is that effects of human error and organizational failures are often neither observable nor reversible; therefore, error recovery is either too late or impossible. Potential catastrophic breakdowns of these systems, which often are characterized as ‘low probability, high consequence’ events, pose serious threats to the people involved, workers in the plant, the local public, and possibly the neighboring region and parts of the whole country. For the foreseeable future, despite increasing levels of computerization and automation, human operators will remain in charge of the day-to-day controlling and monitoring of these systems. Thus, the safe and efficient operation of these technological systems is a function of the interactions among their human (i.e., personnel and organizational) and engineered subsystems. This presentation provides an overview and concrete examples concerning the vital role human factors and (micro- and macro-) ergonomics in the safety and operation of nuclear, petrochemical, transportation (e.g., aviation, railroad) and healthcare industries.