While systematic work on safe design, efficient production and other hardware issues have long been given the attention they deserve, human factors and organisational structures have not yet been exploited to their full potential. Gunnar Berge, director of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate now demands that operators in the Nort Sea demonstrate a safety culture.
Human factors have finally become recognised as an area where vast improvements can be made, says Gunnar Berge, director of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
He is not alone in this prediction. Operators, too, are exploring the potential for improving safety by focusing more on human activity. Both Statoil and Petrobras believe that the importance of the human factor is so crucial that it must receive the priority hitherto accorded the technical aspects of safety work.
Statoil aims to expand the knowledge of interaction between man, machine and technology. Because, the company says, The misinterpretation of signals from screens and control consoles can cause major accidents.
Leads the way
Norway is the first country that introduces in its regulations that the companies have to establish a safety culture.
The NPD has begun a project to look into the realities behind the popular term safety culture. This is an effort that will first affect operators in the North Sea, but pinpointing exactly what constitutes a safety culture will help operators everywhere improve their safety work. Companies struggling to achieve such a culture will reap benefits from others that show the way.
Documented evidence
Regulators intuitive distaste for those who fail to adopt a safety culture may in future be backed by a demand for documented evidence. Demonstrating a companys safety culture may well become integral to safety cases.
Todays complex technology is so advanced and so expensive that not putting equal effort into the most crucial part of any machinery, the human, is a mistake that cannot be afforded. Oil companies that take advantage of the opportunities that lie in a holistic and human-oriented approach to safety work will be the ones that can maximise the bottom line.