Historical overview of the research project

The project Human Error in the Process Industry within the Ergonomics Section of the Technology Work Department at the Graduate School of Industrial Engineering and Management Science was started in 1985. In order to get acquainted with the world of chemical process control two exploratory investigations were carried out in the first two years at Dutch chemical companies. This led to the development of a prototype classification model of system failure (see Chapter 5 for the most recent version). 

From mid 1988 to the end of 1991 a contract research project was carried out at a chemical processing plant of Exxon in Rotterdam, where one of the main activities was the development and implementation of a so called Near Miss Management Systems (NMMS), described in Chapter 8. 

In the second half of 1988 a proposal was made to the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) to sponsor an international Discussion Meeting on near miss reporting. This workshop was held in September 1989 at Eindhoven (sec Chapter 7). 

During 1990 and 1991 the proceedings of the CEC-sponsored meeting were edited and published (Van der Schaaf, Lucas, and Hale, 1991). Also a survey amongst Dutch companies was held, both to test the outcomes of the workshop in relation to safety managers experiences and to assess the state of the art in near miss reporting in the Netherlands (see Chapter ), 

The first half of 1992 was spent in preparing thus thesis and to start preparations for a number of new, related, activities  

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