What is "teseo"

Tecnica Empirica Stima Errori Operatori (TESEO) is a technique in the field of Human reliability Assessment (HRA), that evaluates the probability of a human error occurring throughout the completion of a specific task. From such analyses measures can then be taken to reduce the likelihood of errors occurring within a system and therefore lead to an improvement in the overall levels of safety. There exist three primary reasons for conducting an HRA; error identification, error quantification and error reduction. As there exist a number of techniques used for such purposes, they can be split into one of two classifications; first generation techniques and second generation techniques. First generation techniques work on the basis of the simple dichotomy of ‘fits/doesn’t fit’ in the matching of the error situation in context with related error identification and quantification and second generation techniques are more theory based in their assessment and quantification of errors. ‘HRA techniques have been utilised in a range of industries including healthcare, engineering, nuclear, transportation and business sector; each technique has varying uses within different disciplines.

This is a time based model that describes the probability of a system operator’s failure as a multiplicative function of 5 main factors. These factors are as follows:

1. K1: The type of task to be executed
2. K2: The time available to the operator to complete the task
3. K3: The operator’s level of experience/characteristics
4. K4: The operator’s state of mind
5. K5: The environmental and ergonomic conditions prevalent

Using these figures, an overall Human Error Probability (HEP) can be calculated with the formulation provided below:

K1 x K2 x K3 x K4 x K5

The specific value of each of the above functions can be obtained by consulting standard tables that take account of the method in which the HEP is derived.