Association Journals
The Occurrence Mechanism of Labor Accidents Caused by Human Errors: Two Case Studies in a Manufacturing Company
FUKUO Hiroko(Asahi Glass Co. Ltd・Nagoya University)
KANAI Atsuko(Nagoya University)
The purpose of this study is to examine how human errors which cause labor accidents occur and how they can be reduced to a minimum. In this study, two labor accidents caused by human errors were dealt with as case studies, in which we conducted semi-structured interviews with sixteen employees of a manufacturing company including victims, coworkers, maintenance workers, supervisors and managers. This study clearly states problems of the organization: maintenance delay of unstable facilities, managers’ ignorance of employees’ requests, attachment of importance to productivity, difficulty of evaluation of safety activities, and management of production line in a haphazard way. The result indicates what top executives, managers and supervisors should do to prevent human errors.
Keyword : safety, human error, active failure, latent condition, neglect, organizational approach