Following a positive response to the proposal to run IChemE’s Human factors in health and safety professional development course in Australia, the first of four modules was recently completed in Perth.
The near-capacity audience of delegates came from Australia and Malaysia’s oil, gas and chemical process industries.
The course is a result of IChemE and The Keil Centre joining forces to respond to the need to understand and address the underlying causes of human and organisational failures within the chemical and process industries, which can have a catastrophic outcome for both employees and industry.
The programme is structured around the Great Britain Health and Safety Executive’s “top-ten” human and organisational factors topics, which are equally relevant to the Australian chemical and process engineering industry.
Course director Ronny Lardner observed that, unlike the UK, currently Australia has no nationally agreed definition of human factors in health and safety, with each state having different health and safety regulators who place a varying degree of emphasis on human factors.
“The course participants responded particularly well to the syndicate work, the mix of workshop leaders and topics, along with the invaluable opportunities for networking with like-minded peers."
Lardner adds that there was a real sense of enthusiasm during the training and in particular, during the networking sessions.
As a result, an online forum is currently being set up so that course participants can liaise with each other outside of the programme.
Places are still available for delegates interested in attending the remaining modules in Perth, which are designed to work as stand-alone training modules or form a full Human Factors training course.
- Human reliability and failure: 29-30 May 2013
- Organisational issues: 4-5 September 2013
- Human factors and design: 5-6 February 2014
Visit www.icheme.org/humanfactors for further information about this programme.