Status and (Non)observance of Written Procedures

It is often found that operators do not follow safety procedures even though they are aware that this puts the system in jeopardy. Written procedures have been developed in the first place in order to provide sure safety procedures in automated complex systems. They are supposed to guide human operators in their tasks since no operator can have total knowledge of the involved systems and their interconnections. One would thus expect operators to strictly fallow written procedures but, actually, this is not what is generally observed, even in case of emergency. The main goal of this article is to examine the status of written procedures and to provide a tentative explanation of non ­ observance of these procedures by operators who are aware that this puts in jeopardy human life.