Human Factors Integration with Capital Project Execution

All too often, the scientific discipline of human factors engineering is subsumed under health, safety, and environment.  No doubt there is utility and purpose in such a strategy, albeit limited.  However, in an increasingly complex age where the operator has become monitor or “intelligent overseer” and where the era of knobs and dials is all but gone, embracing the true full purpose of human factors in an integrated and systematic way yields positive lifecycle results. 

Human factors engineering (HFE) has proven “value-added” merit when applied systematically top-down, starting with requirements definition in the concept and select phases with defined strategies through operations to decommissioning.  Timely and appropriate integration of human factors into capital projects with full commitment of management yields all the desired advantages which are often elusive in capital projects.   

Retrofit is always costly, so are overruns and unmet milestones, as is the lack of standardization and consistency... of philosophy, of hardware, of software, and of human-to- human interfaces.  In some highly hazardous process industries, human factors engineering is a “stand alone” design authority.  This allows for the greatest nonbiased input to design, to modifications and upgrades, operations and maintenance, and overall project execution and conduct of operations. The merits of such organizational positioning of HFE along with the alignment and integration of HFE with high reliability organizations, risk management, and systems and process engineering allows for maximized return-on-capital investment.

This discussion delineates the merits of human factors systems integration with a capital investment project.   The relationships to high performing organizations and high reliability management as well as proactive risk management are shown. The strategies, advantages, and outcomes are presented along with the practical application of human factors – which in all reality, is a productivity tool.  Natural outcomes are of course increased worker well-being, enhanced plant health, and contained human error; however, those lie in the shadow of optimized configuration management, safety, and capital resource preservation through proactive human factors implementation.