Human Factors: A National and international safeguards concern

Traditionally, the safeguards community has concentrated on hardware-oriented R&D solutions. Given the experience involving human error failures at TMI and the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Japan, safety experts have begun to re-evaluate how well the human element operates in a high technology, crisis-oriented environment. Safeguards even more critically depend upon the correct response of people. DOE has been looking more closely at the human element and plans to do so increasingly in coming years. We must understand the role that humans play in an effective safeguards system, so as to optimize the protection of nuclear facilities through the interaction of man—machine-process engineering.