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Case Analysis: Calling 911 Essay examples

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1. What human factors problems did you identify in the case study? The first human factors problem I identify is the sparking electric night-light. It is the cause of the fire and thus it is definitely had the design problem from the aspect of human factor. Next is the design of installation of steel security bars at each and every window. Although the design of the steel security bars is to protect the residents of the house, it has a fatal disadvantage which is limited the escape action of the residents. The case study proposed a solution to it which is panic hardware. However, the house only installed one set of panic hardware and this indicated another human factor problem that occurred in setting up the security system of the house. …show more content…

This similarity of the street names is the main cause of delaying the response time of the fire dispatcher units. 2. What are the sources of the problems? In the case study, active failures and latent conditions are the main causes of the accident occurred. “Active failures are the acts or conditions precipitating the incident situation… usually involved the front-line staff” (Health and Safety Executive, 2014a, para. 1). The emergency response of front-line staffs is the main source of the problems stated above. The delaying of emergency rescue action caused by patching the call from the 911 operator to the fire dispatcher and also the searching for the actual address of the fire house are indicating the casual attitude of front-line staff. “Latent conditions are the managerial influences and social pressures that make up the culture, influence the design of equipment or systems, and define supervisory inadequacies” (Health and Safety Executive, 2014a, para. 2). The problems that caused by latent conditions in the case study are the poor design of the night-light, the poor design of security system of the house, and the replicate of the street names design. Normally these latent failures are hidden until they are activated by an incident such as the fire mentioned in the case study. 3. What are the requirements needed to solve the problems? The

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