The growing dependence of working environments on complex technology has
created many challenges and lead to a large number of accidents.
Although the quality of organization and management within the work
environment plays an important role in these accidents, the significance
of individual human action (as a direct cause and as a mitigating
factor) is undeniable. This has created a need for new, integrated
approaches to accident analysis and risk assessment.
This book detailing the use of CREAM is, therefore, both timely and
useful.
It presents an error taxonomy which integrates individual, technological
and organizational factors based on cognitive engineering principles. In
addition to the necessary theoretical foundation, it provides a
step-by-step description of how the taxonomy can be applied to analyse
as well as predict performance using a context-dependent cognitive
model.
CREAM can be used as a second-generation human reliability analysis
(HRA) approach in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), as a
stand-alone method for accident analysis and as part of a larger design
method for interactive systems. In particular, the use of CREAM will
enable system designers and risk analysts to:
- identify tasks that require human cognition and therefore depend on
cognitive reliability
- determine the conditions where cognitive reliability and ensuing risk
may be reduced
- provide an appraisal of the consequences of human performance on
system safety which can be used in PSA.
