Association between Human Error and Occupational Accidents' Contributing Factors for Hand Injuries in the Automotive Manufacturing Industry

Current studies related with the identification and classification of human error and contributing factors for accidents have been focused mainly on organizational accidents in high risk systems, neglecting occupational accidents in the field of manufacturing industry. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between some types of human error and the occupational accidents' contributing factors for hands injuries in the automotive manufacturing industry. This research presents a quantitative study with a cross-correlation design. In collecting data, a sample of 225 reports of accidents with lost days of work was used during 2001-2009. The taxonomy used in this investigation was the System Analysis and Classification of Human Factors developed by Reyes (2011). Likewise, in the data analysis a Chi-square test was used to identify significant associations between some kind of human error and contributing factors and a binary logistic regression analysis in order to know the intensity of such associations. Results show that violations are the main type of human error in the automotive manufacturing industry with 62.66% of frequency in the sample and most of the contributing factors were found in the category of unsafe conditions. Also, violations were associated mainly with the contributing factor of machinery and equipment belonging to the same category. We conclude that accidents analysis in manufacturing industry is showing a clear tendency to declare the worker as the main culprit of the accident. Published by Elsevier B.V.