Jens Rasmussen (11 May 1926 – 5 February 2018) was a system safety,

human factors Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

and

cognitive systems engineering Cognitive systems engineering (CSE) is a field of study that examines the intersection of people, work, and technology, with a focus on safety-critical systems. The central tenet of cognitive systems engineering is that it views a collection of peo ...

researcher at the Risø National Laboratory in Risø,

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. He was highly influential within the field of safety science,

human error Human error refers to something having been done that was " not intended by the actor; not desired by a set of rules or an external observer; or that led the task or system outside its acceptable limits".Senders, J.W. and Moray, N.P. (1991) Human ...

and accident research. His contributions include the skills, rules, knowledge (SRK) framework, risk management framework, dynamic safety model, AcciMap Approach, and others.

Biography

Rasmussen was born in

Ribe Ribe () is a town in south-west Jutland, Denmark, with a population of 8,257 (2022). It is the seat of the Diocese of Ribe covering southwestern Jutland. Until 1 January 2007, Ribe was the seat of both a surrounding municipality and county. It ...

, Denmark. In 1950, he earned an M.Sc. degree in electronic engineering, with a background in control engineering. After completing his degree, he worked for several years at the Radio Receiver Research Laboratory. In 1956, Rasmussen was recruited to work at the Danish Atomic Energy Commission. After several years, he was named the head of the Electronics Department at the Atomic Research Establishment Risø (eventually renamed Risø National Laboratory). In 1981, Rasmussen was appointed Research Professor at both the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

and at Risø National Laboratory.

Contributions

Dynamic safety model

Rasmussen proposed a state-based model of a socio-technical system as a system that moves within a region of a state space. The region is surrounded by three boundaries: * economic failure * unacceptable work load * functionality acceptable performance Incentives push the system towards the boundary of acceptable performance: accidents happen when the boundary is exceeded.

Risk management framework

Rasmussen proposed a multi-layer view of socio-technical systems, with hazardous processes and work at the lowest level, and government at the highest level. The different levels involve different research disciplines (e.g., mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering at the lowest level, political science, la, economics, and sociology at the highest level, and other domains in-between) and different environmental stressors (e.g., changing political climate at the top level, fast pace of technological change at the lowest level)

Skills, rules, knowledge (SRK) framework

See Skills, Rules, Knowledge (SRK) framework.

Abstraction hierarchy

See the abstraction hierarchy.

Ecological interface design

See

Ecological interface design Ecological interface design (EID) is an approach to user interface, interface design that was introduced specifically for complex sociotechnical, real-time, and dynamic systems. It has been applied in a variety of domains including process control ...

AcciMaps

See AcciMap approach.

Selected publications

Books

* * * Jens Rasmussen (2000)
''Proactive Risk Management in a Dynamic Society''. Swedish Rescue Services Agency
ISBN 9172530847.

Papers

* * *

References

The Legacy of Jens Rasmussen
special issue of Applied Ergonomics, Volume 59, Part, B, Pages 471-656 (March 2017)
The Legacy of Jens Rasmussen, Adjunct ODAM 2014 Symposium
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasmussen, Jens 1926 births 2018 deaths Danish academics Safety engineering People from Ribe Academic staff of the Technical University of Denmark Electrical engineers