Supporting the human life-raft in confronting the juggernaut of technology: Jens Rasmussen, 1961-1986

Jens Rasmussen's contribution to the field of human factors and ergonomics has had a lasting impact. Six prominent interrelated themes can be extracted from his research between 1961 and 1986. These themes form the basis of an engineering epistemology which is best manifested by his abstraction hierarchy. Further, Rasmussen reformulated technical reliability using systems language to enable a proper human-machine fit. To understand the concept of human-machine fit, he included the operator as a central component in the system to enhance system safety. This change resulted in the application of a qualitative and categorical approach for human-machine interaction design. Finally, Rasmussen's insistence on a working philosophy of systems design as being a joint responsibility of operators and designers provided the basis for averting errors and ensuring safe and correct system functioning.

Applying the AcciMap methodology to investigate the tragic Sewol Ferry accident in South Korea

This study applies the AcciMap methodology, which was originally proposed by Professor Jens Rasmussen (1997), to the analysis of the tragic Sewol Ferry accident in South Korea on April 16, 2014, which killed 304 mostly young people and is considered as a national disaster in that country. This graphical representation, by incorporating associated socio-technical factors into an integrated framework, provides a big-picture to illustrate the context in which an accident occurred as well as the interactions between different levels of the studied system that resulted in that event. In general, analysis of past accidents within the stated framework can define the patterns of hazards within an industrial sector. Such analysis can lead to the definition of preconditions for safe operations, which is a main focus of proactive risk management systems. In the case of the Sewol Ferry accident, a lot of the blame has been placed on the Sewol's captain and its crewmembers. However, according to this study, which relied on analyzing all available sources published in English and Korean, the disaster is the result of a series of lapses and disregards for safety across different levels of government and regulatory bodies, Chonghaejin Company, and the Sewol's crewmembers. The primary layers of the AcciMap framework, which include the political environment and non-proactive governmental body; inadequate regulations and their lax oversight and enforcement; poor safety culture; inconsideration of human factors issues; and lack of and/or outdated standard operating and emergency procedures were not only limited to the maritime industry in South Korea, and the Sewol Ferry accident, but they could also subject any safety-sensitive industry anywhere in the world.

Cognitive work analysis: An influential legacy extending beyond human factors and engineering

Jens Rasmussen's multifaceted legacy includes cognitive work analysis (CWA), a framework for the analysis, design, and evaluation of complex sociotechnical systems. After considering the framework's origins, this paper reviews its progress, predictably covering experimental research on ecological interface design, case studies of the application of CWA to human factors and engineering problems in industry, and methods and modelling tools for CWA. Emphasis is placed, however, on studying the nexus between some of the recent results obtained with CWA and the original field studies of human problem-solving that motivated the framework's development. Of particular interest is a case study of the use of CWA for military doctrine development, a problem commonly regarded as lying outside the fields of human factors and engineering. It is concluded that the value of CWA, even for such diverse problems, is likely to result from its conceptual grounding in empirical observations of patterns of human reasoning in complex systems.

'Remixing Rasmussen': The evolution of Accimaps within systemic accident analysis

Throughout Jens Rasmussen's career there has been a continued emphasis on the development of methods, techniques and tools for accident analysis and investigation. In this paper we focus on the evolution and development of one specific example, namely Accimaps and their use for accident analysis. We describe the origins of Accimaps followed by a review of 27 studies which have applied and adapted Accimaps over the period 2000-2015 to a range of domains and types of accident. Aside from demonstrating the versatility and popularity of the method, part of the motivation for the review of the use of Accimaps is to address the question of what constitutes a sound, usable, valid and reliable approach to systemic accident analysis. The findings from the review demonstrate continuity with the work carried out by Rasmussen, as well as significant variation (e.g., changes to the Accimap, used of additional theoretical and practice-oriented perspectives on safety). We conclude the paper with some speculations regarding future extension and adaptation of the Accimap approach including the possibility of using hybrid models for accident analysis.

A systemic analysis of South Korea Sewol ferry accident - Striking a balance between learning and accountability

The South Korea Sewol ferry accident in April 2014 claimed the lives of over 300 passengers and led to criminal charges of 399 personnel concerned including imprisonment of 154 of them as of Oct 2014. Blame and punishment culture can be prevalent in a more hierarchical society like South Korea as shown in the aftermath of this disaster. This study aims to analyse the South Korea ferry accident using Rasmussen's risk management framework and the associated AcciMap technique and to propose recommendations drawn from an AcciMap-based focus group with systems safety experts. The data for the accident analysis were collected mainly from an interim investigation report by the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea and major South Korean and foreign newspapers. The analysis showed that the accident was attributed to many contributing factors arising from front-line operators, management, regulators and government. It also showed how the multiple factors including economic, social and political pressures and individual workload contributed to the accident and how they affected each other. This AcciMap was presented to 27 safety researchers and experts at 'the legacy of Jens Rasmussen' symposium adjunct to ODAM2014. Their recommendations were captured through a focus group. The four main recommendations include forgive (no blame and punishment on individuals), analyse (socio-technical system-based), learn (from why things do not go wrong) and change (bottom-up safety culture and safety system management). The findings offer important insights into how this type of accident should be understood, analysed and the subsequent response.

Rasmussen and the boundaries of empirical evaluation

In this special issue, many of the papers focus on Rasmussen's analytic contributions to the understanding of work in complex sociotechnical systems. Work is analysed for the purpose of developing new designs that can improve the nature of that work. The evaluation of such designs was a key part of Rasmussen's program, yet he was often sceptical of the claims made for the generalizability of empirical studies. To tackle this problem, he extended his work analysis framework to provide a way of thinking about empirical evaluation. As authors of this paper, we come from two different backgrounds-systems engineering in the case of Burns, and engineering psychology in the case of Sanderson-and over the decades of our respective research programs, we have both performed many empirical investigations: field investigations, simulation studies, and behavioural laboratory experiments. Rasmussen's scepticism-and his writings on the issue-have stimulated and shaped our own research. In this brief paper we present our interpretation of Rasmussen's perspective, we provide examples how our research sits within Rasmussen's framework of constraints defining boundary conditions for experiments, and we draw conclusions for the future.