Human Error is here to stay.

If there is ever an eternal problem plaguing mankind throughout its existence, it is human error. Take a look back in history and its obvious all the failures in battles and business are the results of mistakes and error. Vice versa, all the success are thanks to all this mistakes and error becoming a learning lessons of the future. The old quote validate about human error "A wise man learn from his mistake, a wiser man learn from others mistake".

However to boldly aim for a zero error or mistake working environment is an outrageous dream in my opinion. Proclaiming such aims is nothing more than trying to move the mountains with hands. There will always be mistakes made in life and work even for the most careful, experienced and skilled hands. The best production facilities in the world admits that it is not able to achieve a 100% production output quality. There bound to be a few loss nuts and screws here and there that get pick up by quality assurance and condemned as rejects (Eventually becoming refurbished products in market). Some might escape the proclaimed keen eye of QA and end up in the hands of consumers (but there is such thing call warranty claims).

So the question that was poised to all of us, "How can we stop human error?" The man, the managers and the leaders of my Empire at the moment don't have the solution at all despite a multi level discussion carried out. Either there is no solution or we are all just protecting our financial and job life line by not making politically incorrect statements. I say there is no way to stop this kind of error happening.

As long as humans are in the equation, the physical and psychological emotions will play its role for the good and bad. Human beings are incredible species that can make a breakthrough under insurmoutable odds and mind breaking pressure but can make mistake under favourable condition. Human error or mistakes are here to stay otherwise there won't even be a whole load of scientific studies, literature and process method to tackle this kinda problem.

So so so so ..... why not we throw away the ridiculous idea of zero human error or human error induced incident? Maybe if all of us are replaced by robots, life will be peaceful but they are subceptible to bugs, worms and virus of a digital kind. Because every reported case, there are hundred other unofficially reported case under. Because it will always be part of life. What we see is the tip of the ice berg. My Opinion:

1. Admit human error and mistakes and folly are here to stay. Embrace it like a friend. If we deny it, we will only be coming out with ideas and solution that goes in the wrong direction. Hitting the wrong door.
   
2. Anticipate the way our people are working. SHEL - Software, Hardware, Enviroment, Liveware (humans).
   
3. Instead of dictating how things are to be done from top down, allow the flexibility and room to adopt different method (Safety first always) to create working process that are smooth flow and little friction. That require the power and authority of changes from our leaders.
4. No self denial. Admit there is a man power problem, equipment problem, morale problem, leadership problem, skill problem. Bring out all problem! They must be solve for a reason.
   
5. Instead of just focusing on productivity, divert resources to production capability. Investing in production capability will definately boost productivity but everyone must have the patience for the effect to manifest.
6. With respect to point number six. Can we all cut the bullshit, the politically right action but effectively wrong ideas, the redundant paperwork just for show and those image/ brand creation. Can we just focus on our core business? Defense! Where have all our value system go to?
   
7. Keep the morale high, keep the man happy and satisfied at work.
8. With changes, comes improvement and that reduce human error, reduce its impact to a resolveable level (if error happens) but never expect no human error.
   

I leave my rattering with this meaningful quote from an article in TIMES,

"Any leader, military or civilian, has one priority: the quality of the people under his command. Without their skill & spirit, the best plans & policies turn to dust"

Once upon a time, the entire department was asked the question. "Can we stop human error and achieve our goals of zero incident, zero accident and zero human factor?" Everyone move to the right in acknowledgement. One junior on job trainee moved to the left in rejection, later on joined in by another courageous junior. Both were duly reprimanded. Truth hurts sometimes.