Enhancing Safety Through strengthening Human Barrier
Abstract
It is a well-known fact that up to 80 % of industrial incidents are caused wholly or partly by human actions. “Machines on its own does not cause any Incidents but human intervention does” is the well know based on incident investigations. To reduce the Incidents and its consequence, it is imperative to have knowledge, know-how, authority & controls be given to all front line personnel making them a reliable and competent barrier. Based on the learnings from events, it was observed that for every incident there are several factors which had contributed to the event. Outcome of the findings suggest enhancing the robustness of preventive measures and this was the top priority within KOC – It includes workforce involvement through Competency Enhancement, further enabling them to identify the underlying hazards and follow the company procedures and standards. The process is chalked on a routine basis as a Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) activity to improve the inherent human reflexes. This plan/campaign was audited periodically to ensure that workforce can be included as a barrier. It was observed that PDCA where planning was based on the inspection & Audit gaps identified. The gaps suggested the diversity of training and awareness session required and competency enhancement at various levels to ensure that personnel act as a critical barrier reducing the human error. It is imperative to suggest that unfamiliarity/skill & knowledge, planning (time shortage or hasting up) and understanding the hazards present along with supervision and feedback stood out as the top human factors which weakens the Human Barrier. The various sessions had motivated the frontline workforce to voice upon the concerns to their superiors for ensuring a safer operation prevail in the oil field. Further the Human factors play a significant role and this is to be given priority at all levels to include safety behavior and safety culture. The Human factor along with the feedback forms the base of the safety pyramid. It was also observed from the quarterly trends which focused on developing a significant improvement in the safety integrated policy concept for enhancing safety through strengthening human barrier. Page | 2 The concept of Human and Human factors being a reliable barrier in the past has not been given significant weightage in design and operation. The idea of this paper is to showcase the approach where the reliability has increased and can consider personnel as a barrier and ensure a reliability operation/ activity. Workforce with a significant support can transform into efficient preventive and mitigative barrier.
Description
PresentationSubject
Human BarrierCollections
Citation
Al-Azmi, Abdulla; Al-Hajri, Abdulrahman; Adivi, Bala Siva Srikanth; Ketavarapu, Sridhar; Sawlikar, Vishal (2019). Enhancing Safety Through strengthening Human Barrier. Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center; Texas &M University. Libraries. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /193399.