The application of the Four Essentials Bow Tie Diagram to enhance business success

摘要

This paper describes the Four Essentials Bow Tie, which can be used to model most situations where man/machine systems impact on the fundamental business goals of Safety, Availability, Economy (Profit) and Quality. These factors or objectives apply to all goods and services where a company's performance determines its long-term success. Human Factors (HF) are also considered to be a vital part of the mix and very often these are overlooked in the system design due to expediency and short-term concentration on the bottom line. The Four Essentials Bow Tie model incorporates two major elements of the HF environment and builds on the pioneering work of HF experts in the 1960s and 1970s. The Bow Tie model is slowly gaining acceptance for evaluating operational risks in any business activity, not only for safety risks in hazardous environments.