Salvador Ávila Filho

The concepts and applications of cases in human factors (HFs), risk, reliability, and crisis, include the analysis of complex systems and difficult to predict sociotechnical systems. Rules and barriers are designed or revised to achieve better organizational efficiency results. The investigation then valuates the concepts such as the basis, the tests such as confirmation, the algorithms such as methods and tools, and the validation that indicates the certainty of achieving good results. The human elements (HE) are part of the design and can either disable or enable the flow of hazard energy. The intention is that these HEs inside the safety culture and technology design act as safeguards. The HE avoids design deficiencies, social and physical. HE can reduce load over the resistance capacity. The culture, social phenomenon, company project, management and staff, group and worker, operational control, failure control, and accident and disaster are classes of HF that transform hazard energy and need efficient HE barriers. The internal and external regulation after these discussions needs to revise its principles to correct processes of standardization and organizational communication, which would change the procedures for team building and the criteria for the technology project. An improvement program includes investigation of lessons learned and behavior treatment.

Employees’ behavior is a result of their personal characteristics as well as the work environment. In this regard, operational culture plays a vital role as it refers to the atmosphere for developing operations and commitment of individuals and the collective. It allows understanding employee’s work-related behavior which is debated in organizational behavior literature since late 1960s. In this chapter, we discuss social flexibility in relation to routine tasks and examples of deviations which appear in their performance in industrial settings. We also present the reasons and consequences of their occurrence or recurrence. Finally, we refer to deviation origins which lead us to open the discussion on the variability of behavior that affects industry safety through the dynamics in human factors.

Petroleum activity is characterized as a high-risk activity due to the probability of accidents with material and human losses. The leaders of this segment assume, besides the complex routine tasks, the challenge of making assertive decisions during an accident. This study aims to present an evaluation model of the Industry Leadership Index for Emergencies Situations ( ILIE ), using the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy System (ANFIS). The model was composed of 4 input variables, namely: knowledge, behavior, skill, and attitude; and one output variable, Industry Leadership. The data collection took place in petroleum production units in Brazil, with a sample of 151 respondents through the application of a survey. The observed data were treated in an Excel tabulator and used in the development of the ANFIS model. From this model, it was possible to carry out simulations to predict the impact, which the increase or decrease in the value of each input variable can influence the leader’s profile. The model performed satisfactorily in the Root of the Mean Square Error (RMSE) analysis, being 0.199 in data training and 1.217 in data verification. The results suggest that the ANFIS method can be successfully applied to establish a model to analyze industry leaders prepared for assertive responses in crisis scenarios.

In December 2019, a new infectious respiratory disease called COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan, Hubei province, in China and quickly reached pandemic status in March 2020, in uncertain and frightening situation. The objective of this study was to analyze the epidemiological curves from the fight against COVID-19 in China and Italy, establishing parameters that can assist with the decisions of health-planning managers. This study was conducted using the principles of the grounded theory methodology and a practical method of comparison between the real and ideal curves, based on the contamination and death data by SARS-CoV-2 in China and Italy. For this purpose, we built graphs, including parameters, such as, among others, amplitude, height, saturation point, acceleration, lethality, event, risk, and efficiency. The results of our study showed that China exhibited amplitude and height of the active contamination and death curve 2 times smaller than those of Italy which exhibited several saturations. It was investigated that Italy presented a qualitative risk of 5–6, whereas for China it was 4. According to the parameters, China and Italy presented health management that was able to reduce the impact caused by the virus. The implementation of adequate health management with these practical tools can guide perception of the crisis critical levels, avoiding major disasters. We intend to continue to validate the method in the analysis of data from Brazil and the USA.