Ronald W. McLeod, Ph.D., is a human factor specialist who combines strong academic credentials with more than 30 years industrial experience in Human Factors and Applied Psychology. He founded Nickleby HFE Ltd, in 1990 and was both Managing Director and Technical Director until 2007. His team provided services in applied research and system design across industries including defence, oil and gas, nuclear power, aerospace, and financial services. In 2007, he joined Shell as Global Discipline Lead for Human Factors and continued to work there until February 2014. At Shell, Ron led a global team of Human Factors specialists and was responsible for Shell's Design Engineering Practices on Human Factors Engineering, as well as assurance of technical competence of both Shell and contractors staff. He was also one of Shell's lead Subject Matter Experts on Fatigue Risk Management. He left Shell in February 2014 to pursue interests in writing and now works part-time as an independent consultant. Ron earned a B.Sc degree with Honors in Psychology from the University of Stirling, an M.Sc in Ergonomics from Loughborough University of Technology, and Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from the University of Southampton. He is Honorary Professor of Engineering Psychology at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ron is a registered member of the Institute of Human Factors and Ergonomics, and is a member of the Human Factors Society and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He has contributed to numerous industry best practices and guides produced by organizations including IOGP/IPIECA, SPE and the Energy Institute. Ron was an invited member of the Psychology User Panel for the UK's 2003 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2003) and was a member of UK National Advisory Committee on Human Factors from 2001-2006. He was Shell's representative on Human Factors sub-committee of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers from 2008-2013, a member of Buncefield Industry Working Group #7 (Human Factors) and a member of Working Group 1 of the UK Process Safety Leadership Group.

1: Introduction

Part 1: Local Rationality at the Formosa Plastics Corporation 2: The Incident 3: Making Sense of Formosa

Part 2: The Scope and Value of Human Factors Engineering 4: An Introduction to HFE 5: Costs and Benefits 6: Hard Truths and Principles of Human Factors Engineering 7: Critical Tasks 8: HFE and Weak Signals 9: Automation and Supervisory Control

Part 3: Irrational People in a Rational Industry 10: The Problem with People 11: Kahneman 12: Some System 1 Biases 13: Expert Intuition and Experience 14: Summary of Part 3

Part 4: Human Factors in Barrier Thinking

Chapter 15: What did you expect? Chapter 16: Human Factors in Barrier Thinking Chapter 17: Intentions, Expectations, and Reality Chapter 18: Pro-active Operator Monitoring Chapter 19: Assuring Human Barriers 20: Reflections on Buncefield

Part 5: Improving HFE 21: HFE Implementation 22: Human Factors and Learning from Incidents 23: In Conclusion - Reflections on Local Rationality