Human factors are an integral component of safe and reliable operations within major hazard facilities (MHFs) and petroleum and geothermal energy operations (PAGEOs). The highly hazardous nature of these operations means they have major accident potential and many of the safety critical tasks to prevent and mitigate major accident events depend on human performance as a barrier or safeguard.

In 2020, WorkSafe Petroleum Safety and Dangerous Goods (WorkSafe) commenced the Human Factors Capability Strategy (the strategy). The four-year strategy is focused on building internal and external human factor capability through stakeholder engagement, education and guidance, industry forums, and an industry-wide project to establish a baseline to measure the industry’s progress in integrating human factors into safety management systems.

This report describes the process and outlines the results and recommendations from the Human Factors Industry Baseline Project (the project) conducted in 2022–23. Ten MHFs and PAGEOs were selected for the project based on regulatory oversight plans and obtaining a representative sample of small, medium and large-scale operations. Participation was voluntary.

The project’s findings identified 11 recommendations to strengthen the integration of human factors into safety management systems for MHFs and PAGEOs. The eleven recommendations are detailed in section 6 of this report.