Domenico Alcaro, VP of Sales Schneider Electric presented to a full room breakout session on Human Error in the Data Center. Domenic shared his presentation and here it is for your viewing with his permission.

Breakout B: Case Study - Eradicating Human Error: Lessons Learned from the US Nuclear Navy

Human error continues to be cited as a leading cause of data center downtime. The goal of eradicating this blight from the data center can be advanced by studying the US Nuclear Navy. In fact, the similarities between a mission critical data center and a mission critical nuclear propulsion plant are striking and many. This presentation will demonstrate the operational methodologies utilized by the US Nuclear Navy to reduce human error drawing comparison to a modern day data center every step of the way.

Domenic Alcaro, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, Schneider Electric

I was able to get access to Domenic presentation and I shared it with some other people ahead of time, and we started discussing human error in the data center. One slide I especially liked is this one.

Note this last line for "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande is a book suggested by a data center executive who I then passed on the information to Domenic. Here is a web site too.

The book’s main point is simple: no matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes (even for Gawande’s own surgical team). The best-known use of checklists is by airplane pilots. Among the many interesting stories in the book is how this dedication to checklists arose among pilots.

Can the USN Submarine procedures be applied? Here are Domenic's points on what can be done and obstacles.