Human Factors Analysis and Classification System

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is a way to understand why people make mistakes in their jobs, and how to prevent those mistakes from happening again.

Just like how you might accidentally knock over a glass of water or forget to tie your shoelaces, people who have important jobs like airplane pilots, doctors or police officers can also make mistakes. But sometimes those mistakes can be really serious, and even dangerous.

HFACS helps people understand why those mistakes happened. It looks at four different levels:

- Individual factors: like if the person was tired, didn't have enough training or was distracted by something
- Team factors: like if the person was working with a group of people who weren't communicating well or didn't have the right equipment
- Organizational factors: like if the person's company or organization didn't have clear rules or policies to follow, or didn't provide enough resources or support
- Supervisory factors: like if the person's boss wasn't providing the right guidance or feedback, or wasn't keeping an eye on their work

By looking at these different factors, people can figure out how to make changes so that the same mistakes don't happen again. Maybe the person needs more training, or maybe their team needs better communication skills. Maybe the organization needs to have clearer rules, or maybe the boss needs to be more involved in their employees' work.

Overall, HFACS is a tool that helps keep people safe by learning from mistakes and making changes to prevent them in the future.