Yes, that was a very old-school way of dealing with the problem. It’s mostly symbolic.

Most problems are systemic, which is a nice way of saying “ultimately management’s fault”.

Most things that most people do, most of the time, are reasonable in the circumstances. Management creates the circumstances. “Human error” is a non-explanation.

Here’s a book on the topic, often called systems thinking: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/...

Getting even more bookish: firing “bad apples” for “human error” is a form of substituting an easier question when presented with a harder one, as Kahneman describes in Thinking Fast and Slow.