It doesn’t seem to matter what happens, whether it be in the oil sector, aviation, maritime or construction, we all embark on "relentless pursuit of delivering incident free operations" but focus only on the behaviours of the operators where clearly the operator has often been set up to fail through poor plant design or unworkable procedures.

1. Introduction
It doesn’t seem to matter what happens, whether it be in the oil sector
(a memorial garden for Piper Alpha in 1988), aviation, maritime or
construction, we all embark on "relentless pursuit of delivering incident free
operations" but focus only on the behaviours of the operators where clearly
the operator has often been set up to fail through poor plant design or
unworkable procedures. We often say, “some good came from these
accidents”, but do we really learn the lessons of experience? Do we really
spend money wisely to stop it happening again? The truth is that many
organizations are still not at a level of safety performance that they should
be and this, in part, can be put down to not applying HFE design principles
early in a project.
The Real Costs of “Human Factors”
Many organisations do not understand the true cost of accidents and other
events with the potential for loss. (Adapted from Shorrock and Hughes
2001) Worse still, such loss-producing events are often simply accepted as
the inevitable consequence of doing business in an imperfect world. The
costs are sometimes seen in terms of fines or action from regulators and
compensation, or the knock-on effects on insurance premiums. In high-
hazard industries, the potential for loss of life is also clear.
But many of these same problems are also creating other losses associated
with reduced production and availability, falling profits, loss of goodwill
and reputation, legal expenses, cost of emergency equipment and
supplies, returned goods and other quality problems, repair and replace-
ment of damaged equipment, and so on.
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THE CRITICALITY OF
HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
INTEGRATION
Tim Southam
Principal Human Factors Engineer
Memorial Garden for Piper Alpha

2. It is now widely accepted that the human contribution to accidents and loss-producing events is enormous. Figures of 80
to 90% are often quoted as being “due to” or associated with human failure, but these figures have no meaning, since
they fail to answer some basic questions such as:
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“When do the problems occur in the system lifecycle?”
“How and why do they occur?”
“How can they be prevented, reduced and mitigated?”

3. © Monaco Engineering Solutions
Human Factors (HF) are all those things that enhance or improve human performance in the
workplace. As a discipline, human factors is concerned with understanding interactions between people and other
elements of complex systems. Human factors applies scientific knowledge and principles as well as lessons learned
from previous incidents and operational experience to optimise human wellbeing, overall system performance and
reliability.
The discipline contributes to the design and evaluation of organisations, tasks, jobs and equipment, environments,
products and systems. It focuses on the inherent characteristics, needs, abilities and limitations of people and the
development of sustainable and safe working cultures.
Human Factors Engineering (HFE) focuses on the application of human factors knowledge to the
design and construction of technical systems. The objective is to ensure systems are designed in a way that
optimises the human contribution to production, sometimes called usability, and minimises potential for design-
induced risks to health, personal or process safety or environmental performance.
The major oil companies recognise that Human Factors Engineering has an important contribution to make to
ensure the quality, safety and fitness for purpose of equipment and facilities used in the industry. But rarely
integrate the processes well and this leads to fragmented results.
The IOGP 454 – HFE in projects, adopts a practical, cost-effective and balanced approach to applying HFE on oil and
gas projects. It recognises that many HFE issues can be controlled simply by ensuring compliance with existing
technical standards. However, there are times where there is a gap between what can be specialised in technical
standards and the design features needed to support efficient, reliable and safe human interventions to achieve
maximum performance.

4. This involves three elements for controlling HFE related risk:
1. Compliance with relevant technical specifications.
2. HFE specific design analysis and design validation.
3. Organisational competence to deliver appropriate stand-
ards of HFE quality control.
Compliance will normally satisfy the requirements from national
regulators for evidence that HFE has been adequately considered
in design. Despite recent Improvement Notices for lack of HFE in
Safety Case submissions, the process allows projects to
demonstrate that consideration has been given to reducing the
HFE risks and the potential for human failure to a level that can
be shown to be As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP)
through engineering and design.
Major capital projects in the oil sector are only possible with
support from third-party engineering contractors. At one extreme
are global companies whom in partnership or consortia take on
the role of principal engineering contractor, sometimes from
Front End Engineering Design (FEED) through to Construction and
Commissioning.
At the other extreme are the very many consultancies and
vendors providing specialist services or equipment across the
industry. An important aim of HFE Integration is to help
engineering contractors and suppliers deliver a higher standard of
support by providing consistency in terms of:
 Understanding of the scope of HFE and how it relates to
other engineering disciplines;
 The value that investment in HFE is expected to deliver;
 The key activities and expected deliverables;
 The competence – in terms of professional training and
experience – expected of individuals assigned responsibility
for managing, conducting or supporting HFE activities; and
 The type of organisational arrangements likely to be
required within a project team.
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5. The integration of HFE is based around the following principles:
 It recognises the relative lack of maturity of HFE as a professional discipline in the oil and gas sector. It therefore
defines a number of levels of HFE competence balancing the need to allow maximum re-use of the existing skills
and experience of the more traditional discipline engineers against the need for HFE professionals.
 It only recommends activities or controls that are not a normal part of oil and gas projects where experience has
shown that there is a compelling need to introduce them in order to provide adequate quality control.
 The competence, activities, deliverables and level of verification required are customised to the assessed
complexity, in HFE terms, of individual projects.
 A decision on how to implement HFE on any project is left to the discretion of the project management (many of
which do not really understand the subject). Someone must assess the project for HFE risk with the competence
and experience to make an informed judgement.
Call to Action
If we really mean these things and put into practice the sentiments that are always felt after a disaster, then let us make
the overriding statement “no harm to people, plant and environment” a reality, then we need to start walking the talk
and ensure that HFE is integrated into all projects. It is an opportunity to minimise the potential for human failure by
making our projects user centric from the start and reduce the often tragic events that leaves loved ones serving a life
sentence for actions left undone.
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MINIMISING RISK
MAXIMISING PERFORMANCE
Monaco Engineering Solutions
Americas ● Europe ● Middle East ● Africa ● Asia Pacific
mes.info@mes-international.com