Usability of Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique with a 4M framework (HEART–4M) – A Case Study on Ship Grounding Accidents

Human error plays a vital role in causing maritime accidents. This paper presents the analysis of human factors in 52 grounding accident reports of ships greater than 10,000 GT retrieved from 11 national investigation boards. In this study, the categorization of error-producing conditions (EPCs) from the Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART) methodology to 4M (Man, Machine, Media, and Management) framework, EPC–4M was carried out. This study aims to categorize the EPCs to the 4M framework to better explain these other factors that relate to human factors. There were 18 EPCs in man factors, 3 EPCs in machine factors, 1 EPC in media factors, and 16 EPCs in management factors. Three types of generic tasks were obtained in this grounding analysis, and 259 relevance EPC–4M were acquired. EPCs related to management factors were the primary causes of such accidents. The average human error probability for these cases was around 55%.