Human Performance Reliability (HPR) Services

Analyzing and Strengthening Barriers to Human Error

Companies rely of a variety of engineered and administrative controls to manage employee and contractor behavior. From an operational perspective, these controls include organizational culture, policies, procedures and practices, maintenance programs, employee selection and training, supervision, working conditions, etc. Unintended events occur when there is a weakness or failure in one or more of these controls. The challenge is to know which of the controls are working well, which need improvement, and which are missing.

Kestrel’s HPR process helps companies characterize and classify errors, and then identify, understand, and ultimately manage the factors that contribute to human error to prevent future incidents and accidents:

• Inventory.Our team works with company personnel to develop an inventory and understanding of the current operational controls (e.g., organizational culture, policies, procedures and practices, maintenance programs, employee selection and training, supervision, working conditions).
• Review. We start with the client’s existing incident investigation process and incorporate Kestrel’s HPR process and Human Factors Integration Tool (HFIT™) to review incident reports and identify the multiple factors that may be contributing to human errors.
• Identify.Through the HPR process, we are able to identify the specific operational controls that are contributing to human error.
• Improve.We then work with the client, as needed, to improve and/or develop the controls necessary to reduce the likelihood of a recurring human error.

Systemic Opportunities

The HPR process provides immediate value when initially applied to the investigation of an individual event, but it is most powerful when used to review and assess multiple investigations. When aggregated, the results of multiple investigations yield a pattern of contributing factor indicators that can be used to uncover systemic opportunities for operational enhancements and improve overall reliability.

Kestrel’s Human Performance Reliability (HPR) process enables companies to identify, understand, and ultimately manage the underlying factors that contribute to human error. Effectively implementing the improvements identified through HPR requires a robust management tool that can collect, measure, and communicate HPR inputs and outputs.

Kestrel’s Human Factors Integration Tool (HFIT™) is the software companion to the HPR process that allows our team to assess current safety incidents, streamline the review process, and manage incident data.

Creating a Streamlined and Standardized Process

With efficiency at its core, HFIT™ is designed to streamline and standardize the HPR process. In addition, HFIT™ helps companies to:

• Integrate human factor analyses into their incident investigation processes
• Identify underlying factors contributing to unintended events (e.g., incidents and accidents, environmental releases, air emission events, product quality deviations, food safety events, medical mistakes)
• Link identified human factors to specific operational controls that are missing or need improvement to reduce the likelihood of incidents
• Reveal immediate local and systemic improvement actions
• Identify system-wide opportunities for improvement in the prevention of unintended events

Underlying Methodology

Integrating an analysis of human factors into operations is challenging. Kestrel’s approach allows companies to apply HPR and tailor HFIT™ to their unique operations, based on a common underlying methodology:

1. Modify and Fit – Through a disciplined consultative process, HPR is adapted to a company’s existing incident investigation processes.
2. Process Support– HFIT™ provides guidance on the multi-level HPR framework used to systematically identify active and latent failures contributing to human error.
3. Report and Measure– HFIT™ identifies gaps and patterns in existing prevention barriers, which enables priority setting for improving operational controls.

Subscription Software

HFIT™ is a cloud software solution that is offered to clients on a subscription basis. HFIT™ is hosted in Madison, Wisconsin, with encryption and security measures that meet or exceed industry standards. All client data are maintained for confidentiality.