Human Factors Problem Identification in Surface Mines

The authors are involved in a project to identify and to assess the criticality of various human factors problems in the U. S. surface mining industry. This study will result in a series of recommendations for future research in this area. The effort has been organized into two phases; the development of a candidate list of known or suspected problems and the field validation and assessment of the problems. Because of limited project resources, it was necessary to develop a list of candidate human factors problems that would have widespread health and safety consequences to surface miners. This paper discusses the methodology used to develop this candidate list of human factors problems.