The Swiss Cheese model is what Reason called the McDonald’s golden arches of accident analysis.
Psychologist Prof. James Reason CBE has died at the age of 86. While earlier academics had presented the idea of human factors and layering of event chains, it was Reason who distilled the concept through his erudite but digestible presentations. Most famously, he is, of course, the creator of the Swiss Cheese model, so often quoted and misquoted after every accident. For this writer, a keen student of his writings, the most formidable is his assertion that “The role of the operator in an accident is to add the final garnish to a lethal stew whose ingredients have been long in the cooking.”
No one has ever said it better.
Writing on social media, a titan of Just Culture, Dr Sidney Dekker, said: “Jim’s influence will endure – not just in the ideas he shaped, but in the way he taught us to pay attention to the organisational blunt end, to speak and write vividly, and to challenge leaders with both conviction and humour. His wit made him a formidable presence in our field and also a treasured colleague and friend… And while we may have disagreed on the existence of ‘human error,’ there is no error in recognising the deep and lasting impact of James Reason.”
