The proportion of human error as a cause of rising costs is far from insignificant in many organizations. Human errors are often blamed for the occurrence of defects, damage, failures, and accidents. In many cases, the consequences of such errors can be extremely severe. An open approach to dealing with mistakes (e.g., lessons-learned events) on its own is not sufficient for an organization to prevent human errors or their consequences. These events unfortunately occur too late, are usually not systematic, and do not provide sustainable knowledge accumulation, as much data and information gets lost in the process. Why should an organization wait until an error or failure becomes a reality?

A so-called “error culture” that is not systematically established and implemented is often counterproductive and never truly beneficial. Furthermore, the assumption that process management or process maps alone can prevent errors or enable a zero-defect strategy is purely an illusion.

The real art lies not only in reducing consequential costs and damages, but also in preventing human errors in advance and systematically leveraging past mistakes as additional resources within the organization. This is only possible with Human Error Management (HEM).