Partial book profile
Managing Maintenance Error
A practical guide arguing that maintenance error is not random human weakness but a systematic, manageable business risk shaped by tasks, workplaces, and organizations.
The full book profile is not available yet.
What it’s about
Maintenance error causes billions in losses and has contributed to some of the world's worst disasters, yet it rarely makes headlines. Written by human factors pioneer James Reason and researcher Alan Hobbs, this book reframes maintenance error as a predictable, patterned phenomenon that can be managed like any well-defined risk. Rather than blaming careless individuals, it shows how error-provoking tasks and conditions—reassembly steps, time pressure, fatigue, poor procedures, weak communication—generate recurrent errors regardless of who does the job. Drawing on aviation, nuclear, rail, and offshore case studies, it lays out a comprehensive philosophy and toolkit of error management measures aimed at the person, team, task, workplace, and organization, culminating in the creation of a just, reporting, and learning safety culture. It is essential reading for anyone who manages, supervises, or performs maintenance in hazardous industries.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A maintenance manager, supervisor, or technician in a hazardous industry who wants to prevent costly and dangerous maintenance errors.
- The problem
- Maintenance errors keep recurring, causing accidents, delays, and enormous financial losses. They feel frustrated and helpless, tempted to blame individuals, and unsure how to control what seems random and inevitable.
- The plan
- Understand the fundamentals of human performance and the varieties of error.
- Identify the local and organizational factors that provoke errors and violations.
- Apply targeted error management measures at the person, team, task, workplace, and organization levels.
- Build reactive and proactive safety information systems and strengthen defences.
- Cultivate a just, reporting, and learning safety culture and sustain it through committed leadership.
- The payoff
- Errors are reduced and contained, recurrent error traps are eliminated, and the system becomes more resilient. · Good people become excellent, defences catch inevitable errors, and the organization learns continuously. · Costs fall and safety improves without relying on blame or punishment.
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Related profiles we’ve built
- Benchmarking Maintenance Mgmt →
- The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You →
- Thinking and Reasoning_ A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) →
- The Fifth Discipline →
- Decisive →
- Thinking, Fast and Slow →
- Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition →
- Antifragile (Incerto) →
Featured in these guides
- Maintenance & Repair Leader (M3) →Cited source
- Lead Maintenance & Repair Work →Pole in “Inverted-U Arousal Versus Monotonic Fatigue Harm”
- Run Operations And Supply Chains On Evidence →Cited source