33: Beyond ‘Human Error’- Designing for Humans

In this episode of Risk Revolution, Val and Nuala are joined by Julie Avery and Dominic Furniss, both experts on Human Reliability, to tackle a stubborn challenge in pharmaceutical manufacturing quality: why we keep seeing repeat deviations, repeat CAPAs, and repeat “retraining’.
Julie and Dominic make a practical case for integrating Human Factors Engineering (HFE) into the PQS in a way that is not only cultural, but structured and auditable. Drawing lessons from other high-hazard industries (including COMAH), they outline what a pharma-focused human reliability guide could look like.
This conversation isn’t just theory. Julie and Dominic are actively building momentum, and they’re inviting quality leaders, practitioners, and learners to join a growing Community of Practice to share tools, case experiences, and practical ways to bring human reliability into real PQS work. If you’ve ever thought, ‘we keep fixing the symptom,’ this episode is for you.