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In the manufacturing industry – as in all industries – large amounts of money are wasted every year through mistakes and mishaps. What’s the cause of all these problems? Usually it comes down to ‘human error’!
No matter what systems and processes you use in your industry, human error is generally given as the fundamental cause of problems like product recall, customer complaints and even poor audit findings. We see it in the news all the time – human error means that important documents are left on trains, or that information is accidentally lost. In many cases however human error is used as an excuse for underlying problems or issues that caused the error in the first instance.
Human error is avoidable in many cases, and can at least be minimised in most industries by applying some simple working rules. These are applicable across all industries so no matter where you work there’ll be improvements you can make.
What’s the Psychology Behind Human Error?
To make a difference and solve the problem of human error, you need to understand why it occurs. Asking some questions about your particular problems will be useful. For example, why do men and women take different approaches to tasks and problems? What is it that makes people sometimes completely overlook problems? What is it that makes us make assumptions about a situation that turn out to be wrong? The answers to these questions will give you a good idea of where to start.
A lot of human error is caused simply by boredom. Many tasks are repetitive and attention easily wanders or the task becomes so second-nature that the worker doesn’t notice when an error occurs. Rotating dull jobs between people can help to avoid boredom and make sure that a fresh mind is always working on the job.
Take a blame-free attitude to mistakes and stay positive.
A positive attitude can help people who have made a mistake to confess! If they know that they will be met with help rather than reprimanded they are more likely to admit to an error which can then be put right. Sharing mistakes in this way can help the whole workforce to learn and put processes in place to stop the same mistake happening again. This constructive attitude needs to come from management and be part of the company ethos.
Get rid of complex systems
A key to minimising human error is to keep systems and processes as simple as possible. A lot of industries buck this trend by trying to make things as failsafe as possible and they also feel pressure to adhere to lots of regulations. Increased checks and paperwork can actually increase the scope for human error as more and more things must be remembered when carrying out everyday tasks. A full review of your processes could help to spot where problems are arising and where processes could be simplified. A great tip, but one often overlooked by management, is to ask the workforce what they think. It could be that a whole chunk of tasks are seen as unnecessary and difficult, and this is a great opportunity to increase efficiency and decrease errors.
Keep your systems usableThis is especially applicable if you work with software like intranets or other internal systems. These should be designed with usability in mind. Too often it’s the process of the system that takes precedence and what’s created is something incredibly difficult for people to use. As the workforce at the very start to test any new equipment you invest in to see if they can actually use it, or what training could be given to help. If you end up with a more intuitive system you’ll have less errors right from the start.
Give people an incentive to be responsible
Whilst management should take a positive attitude to error reporting, it’s also important to instill an ethos of personal responsibility. Let the workforce take pride in their work so that they become self-disciplined. If they care about their own standards errors are less likely to occur. You could even implement a bonus scheme based on accountability to encourage people to do a good job.
These are just some of the things I’ve learnt from my time in the manufacturing industry, but you can apply them across a lot of different sectors.
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Source by Bert Steiner
