This document discusses the importance of considering human factors in abnormal situation management (ASM) and control room staffing. It provides the following key points:
- About 80% of plant catastrophes are ultimately caused by human error when considering the root causes, not just the direct causes. Human factors like fatigue, training, and communication can contribute to human errors.
- A new approach is needed that examines the entire work system and looks for ways to eliminate "error-likely" situations, rather than just blaming individuals. This means considering human factors during design, operations and maintenance.
- The document outlines a staffing assessment methodology developed in the UK that systematically evaluates control room staffing levels. It as
Human Factors (HF) covers a variety of issues that relate primarily to the individual and workforce, their behavior and attributes. Human error is still poorly understood by many stakeholders and so the risk assessments of operations or process often fall short in their capture of potential failures. There is little consideration of human factors in the engineering design of equipment, operating systems and the overall process, procedures and specific work tasks. Operational human factor issues are often treated on an ad-hoc basis in response to individual situations rather than as part of an overarching and comprehensive safety management strategy. The role that human factors play in the rate of incidents, equipment failure and hydrocarbon releases is poorly understood and underdeveloped.
Organization behavioral human factors contributing to accident (Ajeenkya D Y ...Ajeenkya D Y Patil
Human Factors Causing Accidents :-
Human factors causing accidents are those factors directly attributable to the operator, worker or personnel involved in an accident.
A number of human behavioral factors may contribute to the accidents.
Human Factors (HF) covers a variety of issues that relate primarily to the individual and workforce, their behavior and attributes. Human error is still poorly understood by many stakeholders and so the risk assessments of operations or process often fall short in their capture of potential failures. There is little consideration of human factors in the engineering design of equipment, operating systems and the overall process, procedures and specific work tasks. Operational human factor issues are often treated on an ad-hoc basis in response to individual situations rather than as part of an overarching and comprehensive safety management strategy. The role that human factors play in the rate of incidents, equipment failure and hydrocarbon releases is poorly understood and underdeveloped.
Organization behavioral human factors contributing to accident (Ajeenkya D Y ...Ajeenkya D Y Patil
Human Factors Causing Accidents :-
Human factors causing accidents are those factors directly attributable to the operator, worker or personnel involved in an accident.
A number of human behavioral factors may contribute to the accidents.
FAA HUMAN FACTOR IN AVIATION MAINTENANCE HF MROAmnat Sk
This manual is in response to the industry’s requests for a simple and manageable list of actions to implement a Maintenance Human Factors (MHF) program. A panel of experts selected the following six topics for such a program to be successful:
Event Investigation
Documentation
Human Factors Training
Shift/Task Turnover
Fatigue Management
Sustaining & Justifying an HF Program
For each of the six topics that contribute to the success of any MHF program, this manual offers the following:
Why is the topic important?
How do you implement it?
How do you know it is working?
Key references
Like any good operator’s manual, this document tells you what to do without excessive description of why you should do it. This manual recognizes you already know the importance of Human Factors. For detailed information, see the “Key References” at the end of each topic.
The selected six topics are critical because they are based on operational data and practical experience from the US and other countries. Transport Canada (TC), United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA), and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations contributed to this manual. The steps are derived from a panel of ten industry and government contributors who have worked in aviation maintenance for an average of twenty-five years and in MHF for fifteen years. The contributors characterized these six topics and related steps as “information they wish they had known 15 years ago.”
These straightforward suggestions provide the key components for implementing a successful MHF program that will benefit your company, business partners, external customers, and the entire industry. Information is presented in summary bullets as follows:
These are six topics, from many, that a MHF program may consider.
Topics are not necessarily in order of importance, except that the data obtained from Event Investigation (Section 1) provide the foundation for many Human Factors activities.
You may implement any or all of the topics, however, they should be coordinated.
Your MHF activity should be based on the identified requirements and resources of your organization.
You are encouraged to supplement this Operator's Manual with additional references.
This document satisfies the industry request for a short and straightforward list of important actions.
Human factors, particularly human error, impacts how everyone works. Understanding how human factors affects productivity, quality, profitability, and prosperity in a global market. In the fourth industrial revolution, which is occurring now, it's very important to understand not only the work but how the works gets done. Using technology and innovations can help improve speed and reliability but humans are the driver for safety culture and behavior. Engineering, administrative controls and the use of personal protective clothing and equipment can help protect workers but understanding and doing the correctly each and every time will lead toward sustainable objectives and reduce waste and maximize time toward product/service output. Where emphasis is placed within the organization depends on the risk governance and strategic management objectives. The higher the risk the greater the reward or catastrophic loss. Understanding people and how they work is the safety catalyst in maximizing profits, productivity and quality.
Human Factors such as stress, fatigue and communication affect many aspects of the finance industry and how people perform in their roles.
In this presentation we'll look at human factors in finance in a bit more detail and explain what can be done to make improvements in performance, procedures, morale and more.
Human Factors in a Safety
Management System – Breaking the
Chain
A safety management system (SMS) goes
beyond the health and safety concerns
usually associated with the mining or
building and construction disciplines. Ever
thought about the aerospace and defence
industries?
This presentation includes understanding
the human factors and cultural growth that
need to occur within any industry wanting
to implement a successful SMS.
Effects of Good Maintenance Management System on Workers Safety and EnvironmentIJERA Editor
This work presents a study of the effects of good maintenance management system on the workers safety and the work environment. The study focuses on the efficient management policies used in maintenance systems in industrial firms that reduces risks and hazardous conditions affect the safety of workers. Also the effects of such management systems on work environment are studied and analyzed. The cost of maintenance on such firms is affected by the maintenance management policy followed by the firm. The effects of such management system on cost is also studied and analyzed. Data and information will be collected from many firms or factories using some questioners directed to workers and then some statistical tools will be used here to analyze these effects
FAA HUMAN FACTOR IN AVIATION MAINTENANCE HF MROAmnat Sk
This manual is in response to the industry’s requests for a simple and manageable list of actions to implement a Maintenance Human Factors (MHF) program. A panel of experts selected the following six topics for such a program to be successful:
Event Investigation
Documentation
Human Factors Training
Shift/Task Turnover
Fatigue Management
Sustaining & Justifying an HF Program
For each of the six topics that contribute to the success of any MHF program, this manual offers the following:
Why is the topic important?
How do you implement it?
How do you know it is working?
Key references
Like any good operator’s manual, this document tells you what to do without excessive description of why you should do it. This manual recognizes you already know the importance of Human Factors. For detailed information, see the “Key References” at the end of each topic.
The selected six topics are critical because they are based on operational data and practical experience from the US and other countries. Transport Canada (TC), United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA), and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations contributed to this manual. The steps are derived from a panel of ten industry and government contributors who have worked in aviation maintenance for an average of twenty-five years and in MHF for fifteen years. The contributors characterized these six topics and related steps as “information they wish they had known 15 years ago.”
These straightforward suggestions provide the key components for implementing a successful MHF program that will benefit your company, business partners, external customers, and the entire industry. Information is presented in summary bullets as follows:
These are six topics, from many, that a MHF program may consider.
Topics are not necessarily in order of importance, except that the data obtained from Event Investigation (Section 1) provide the foundation for many Human Factors activities.
You may implement any or all of the topics, however, they should be coordinated.
Your MHF activity should be based on the identified requirements and resources of your organization.
You are encouraged to supplement this Operator's Manual with additional references.
This document satisfies the industry request for a short and straightforward list of important actions.
Human factors, particularly human error, impacts how everyone works. Understanding how human factors affects productivity, quality, profitability, and prosperity in a global market. In the fourth industrial revolution, which is occurring now, it's very important to understand not only the work but how the works gets done. Using technology and innovations can help improve speed and reliability but humans are the driver for safety culture and behavior. Engineering, administrative controls and the use of personal protective clothing and equipment can help protect workers but understanding and doing the correctly each and every time will lead toward sustainable objectives and reduce waste and maximize time toward product/service output. Where emphasis is placed within the organization depends on the risk governance and strategic management objectives. The higher the risk the greater the reward or catastrophic loss. Understanding people and how they work is the safety catalyst in maximizing profits, productivity and quality.
Human Factors such as stress, fatigue and communication affect many aspects of the finance industry and how people perform in their roles.
In this presentation we'll look at human factors in finance in a bit more detail and explain what can be done to make improvements in performance, procedures, morale and more.
Human Factors in a Safety
Management System – Breaking the
Chain
A safety management system (SMS) goes
beyond the health and safety concerns
usually associated with the mining or
building and construction disciplines. Ever
thought about the aerospace and defence
industries?
This presentation includes understanding
the human factors and cultural growth that
need to occur within any industry wanting
to implement a successful SMS.
Effects of Good Maintenance Management System on Workers Safety and EnvironmentIJERA Editor
This work presents a study of the effects of good maintenance management system on the workers safety and the work environment. The study focuses on the efficient management policies used in maintenance systems in industrial firms that reduces risks and hazardous conditions affect the safety of workers. Also the effects of such management systems on work environment are studied and analyzed. The cost of maintenance on such firms is affected by the maintenance management policy followed by the firm. The effects of such management system on cost is also studied and analyzed. Data and information will be collected from many firms or factories using some questioners directed to workers and then some statistical tools will be used here to analyze these effects
A Human-Centric Approach to Oil & Gas Industry SafetyCognizant
Wearables and other digital hardware can help minimize safety incidents. Monitoring biometrics and alerting workers before they become dangerously mentally or physically fatigued mitigates tiredness as a significant contributing factor in workplace accidents. Applying big data techniques to human behavior enables causal analysis to find the root causes of accidents.
46 ProfessionalSafety FEBRUARY 2017 www.asse.org.docxalinainglis
46 ProfessionalSafety FEBRUARY 2017 www.asse.org
Program Management
Peer-reviewed
P
art 1 of this article (PS, January 2017,
pp. 36-45) discussed the three key elements
of a modern occupational safety program:
engineering and technical standards and controls,
management and operation systems, and human
factors. Each element plays an important role, yet
many organizations continue to stress one at the
expense of the others, which creates an unbalanced
and ineffective OSH program. The human factor is
present in most every incident, yet often the focus
is too narrowly trained on blaming at-risk behav-
iors or unsafe acts rather than on identifying and
addressing the conditions, systems and norms that
enable or cause those errors.
Part 2 of this article examines how employers
can better incorporate engineering and system
elements into worker-oriented initiatives to cre-
ate a more comprehensive approach to OSH and
thereby better understand incident causes, reduce
incident rates, confirm regulatory compliance, and
prevent serious injuries and fatalities.
Proving due diligence
While some allege that companies may use
behavior-based safety (BBS) as due-diligence
or reasonable-care proof in potential litigation
(United Steelworkers Local 343, 2000), in the au-
thor’s opinion, BBS observation documentation
does not appear to be strong in that regard, as it
is typically based on basic observations of work-
ers’ behaviors by nonprofessionals, and often
has nothing to do with recognizing and control-
ling occupational hazards. Traditional regulatory
compliance-based safety systems should be ex-
pected to provide due diligence.
only applicable to “best in class”?
BBS programs are often recommended for best-
in-class companies that already have engineering
controls and systems in place and an excellent
safety culture. Implementation in less-advanced
safety systems may be less ideal.
For example, “Practical Guide for Behavioral
Change in the Oil and Gas Industry,” states:
During the past 10 years, large improvements
in safety have been achieved through improved
hardware and design, and through improved
safety management systems and procedures.
However, the industry’s safety performance has
leveled out with little significant change being
achieved during the past few years. A different
approach is required to encourage further im-
provement. This next step involves taking action
to ensure that the behaviors of people at all lev-
els within the organization are consistent with an
improving safety culture. (Step Change in Safety,
2001)
The potential effect of behavior modifications on
safety performance (incident rates) is illustrated in
Figure 1 (p. 48). The conclusion suggested by Fig-
ure 1 is that significant incident reduction can be
achieved through engineering and systems con-
trols. When those two are addressed, an organi-
zation can then work on behavioral modifications
for further imp.
Program DevelopmentPeer-ReviewedManagementofCExamp.docxbriancrawford30935
Program Development
Peer-Reviewed
Management
ofC
Examples From Practice
By Fred A, Manuele
M
anagement of change (MOC)
is a commonly used technique.
Its purpose is to:
•Identify the potential consequences
of a change.
•Plan ahead so that counter actions
can be taken before a change occurs and
continuously as the change progresses.
With respect to operational risks, the
process ensures that:
•Hazards are identified and analyzed,
and risks are assessed.
•Appropriate avoidance, elimination
or control decisions are made so that
acceptable risk levels are achieved and
maintained throughout the change pro-
cess.
•New hazards are not knowingly in-
troduced by the change.
•The change does not negatively af-
fect previously resolved hazards.
•The change does not increase the
severity potential of an existing hazard.
This process is applied when a site
modifies technology, equipment, fa-
cilities, work practices and procedures,
design specifications, raw materials, or-
ganizational or staffing situations, and
standards or regulations. An MOC pro-
cess must consider:
•safety of employees making the
changes;
•safety of employees in adjacent work
areas;
•safety of employees who will be en-
gaged in operations after changes are
made;
•environmental aspects;
•public safety;
Fred A. Manuele, P.E., CSP, is president of Hazards Limited,
which he formed after retiring from Marsh & McLennan where he
was a managing director and manager of M&M Protection Consul-
tants. His books include Advanced Safety Management: Focusing on
ZIO and Serious Injury Prevention, On the Practice of Safety, Innova-
•product safety and quality;
•fire protection so as to avoid prop-
erty damage and business interruption.
OSHA's (1992) Process Safety Man-
agement Standard (29 CFR 1910.119)
requires that covered operations have
an MOC process in place. No other
OSHA regulation contains similar re-
quirements, although the agency does
address MOC in an information paper
(OSHA, 1994). Also, this subject is a
requirement to achieve desig-
nation in OSHA's Voluntary
Protection Programs.
Establishing the Need
Three studies establish that
having an MOC system as an
element within an operation's
risk management system
would serve well to reduce
serious injury potential. This
author reviewed more than
1,700 incident investigation
reports, mostly for serious in-
juries, that support the need
for and the benefit of an MOC
system. These reports showed
that a significantly large share
of incidents resulting in seri-
ous injury occurs:
•when unusual and non-
routine work is being per-
formed;
•in nonproduction activities;
•in at-plant modification or
construction operations (e.g.,
replacing an 800-lb motor on a platform
15 ft above the fioor);
IN BRIEF
•Studies and statistics indi-
cate that an effective man-
agement of change (MOC)/
prejoh planning compo-
nent within an operations
risk management system
reduces the potential for
serious injuries.
•Specific guidelines from
pr.
The article deals with the identification through field research in the understanding of the workers about the risks and how these may be protected by individual protection equipment.
Full paper presented at the NPRA National Safety Conference, 1999 in Dallas "Human Performance Engineering: A Practical Approach to Application of Human Factors. [Relevant to safe operation of "high hazard" facilities, for example in process and energy industries.]
arriers thatd due to lackm factorsthese causalent ca.docxdavezstarr61655
arriers that
d due to lack
m factors
these causal
ent causation
idents—it
analyzes the
haviors—it
uld” follow.
edges the
g
he new
requency of
ts.
Systems Model of Construction Accident Causation
Panagiotis Mitropoulos1; Tariq S. Abdelhamid2; and Gregory A. Howell3
Abstract: The current approach to safety focuses on prescribing and enforcing “defenses;” that is, physical and procedural b
reduce the workers’ exposure to hazards. Under this perspective, accidents occur because the prescribed defenses are violate
of safety knowledge and/or commitment. This perspective has a limited view of accident causality, as it ignores the work syste
and their interactions that generate the hazardous situations and shape the work behaviors. Understanding and addressing
factors that lead to accidents is necessary to develop effective accident prevention strategies. This paper presents a new accid
model of the factors affecting the likelihood of accidents during a construction activity. The model takes a systems view of acc
focuses on how the characteristics of the production system generate hazardous situations and shape the work behaviors, and
conditions that trigger the release of the hazards. The model is based on descriptive rather than prescriptive models of work be
takes into account the actual production behaviors, as opposed to the normative behaviors and procedures that workers “sho
The model identifies the critical role of task unpredictability in generating unexpected hazardous situations, and acknowl
inevitability of exposures and errors. The model identifies the need for two accident prevention strategies:~1! reliable production plannin
to reduce task unpredictability, and~2! error management to increase the workers’ ability to avoid, trap, and mitigate errors. T
causation model contributes to safety research by increasing understanding of the production system factors that affect the f
accident. The practical benefit of the model is that it provides practitioners with strategies to reduce the likelihood of acciden
DOI: 10.1061/~ASCE!0733-9364~2005!131:7~816!
CE Database subject headings: Occupational safety; Construction site accidents; Accident prevention.
as a
sures
aised
safety
injury
the
the
f
d on
en-
that
f the
iors.”
li-
, en-
t
li-
ance.
acci-
ance
h.
. It
safety
zards
of
eased
dd
table
afety
ts are
s to
ch as
a less
d the
ffec-
ces in
es are
ol of
ment
323.
um,
ssions
te by
ging
pos-
2004.
-
05/
Introduction
In recent years, construction accident rates have declined
result of substantial effort by many parties. Increased pres
from OSHA and owners, and increased cost of accidents r
the contractors’ awareness. In turn, contractors increased
training and enforcement. These efforts have reduced the
and illness rate from 12.2 in 1993 to 7.9 in 2001. However,
rate of fatalities has shown little improvement—since 1997,
number of fatalities per year is consistently over 1,100~Bureau o
Labor Statistics 2004!.
The current appr.
Improving the Efficacy of Root Cause AnalysisCognizant
When medical device organizations apply a relevant and appropriate level of automation to root cause analysis, they can ensure swift action on nonconformities and avoid issue reoccurrence.
For many manufacturers, evaluating and managing the risk of obsolescence is a missing piece of their overall management strategy, an oversight that can have significant implications in terms of business continuity. With a clear obsolescence policy and risk-assessment framework, manufacturing companies can help ensure that their systems and assets remain up and running, supported by a continuous risk-mitigation cycle.
CHAPTER15 Leaming from Accidents While no company want.docxmccormicknadine86
CHAPTER15
Leaming from Accidents
While no company wants to have accidents, once they occur, it is
important to learn from these accidents. One of the worst mistakes to make
for a company is to repeat an accident. Accidents are opportunities to fix the
safety program, correct hazardous situations, train employees on the correct
behavior, and ensure systemic problems are corrected. While an accident is
dreadful, we must learn from them.
The key concept of a safety program and the accident investigation program
15 ro prevent accidents and/ or prevent recurrence of an accident. No one
wants to get hurt, but actions/inactions and conditions will dictate an accident.
All 'd aca ents are caused, and there are many consequences of accidents. The
heallh and safety of personnel is the utmost priority, but other issues include
funcuonal c bili' f · fin · al 11 bein apa ty a ter los s, public image and reputation, anc1 we -
g 0oss of sales), and also civil or criminal legal action.
Lessons Learned
"If it ca 0 happen h ' 1 " Thi · the co at t 1s ocation then it can happen anywhere. s 1s
ncept of 1 ' essons learned. One of the most important elements of
159
Parl IV: Pmornting Arddmls
160
accident in vcs t.igat.ion that ha s been discussed is to fi
an . . gure Out Wh
happened and how to prevent It. One of the bigge st mistakes of an . at
. k d kin y acc1de is not learning from your rrusta ·e s an ma · g the same mist k . nt
. h aeagainAu companies need to not 1us1 fix t e problem areas and prev ·
' ent recurren
b)' correcting the problems, but actually develop a system to lea f ce
. rn rorn th
accidents. A lesso ns learned program will ensure that accidents a e
, . . re corrected
not just at o ne locat1on, but at all locations. Also a lessons lea d f
. . rne rorn a
smaller accident can hdp avoid a larger accident from happening. "If ~-e
were really good at learrung from o ur mistakes, two similar accidents would
never occur" Qanson 2009) .
One of the biggest failures of companies is not communicating the
problems, causes , issues, rrustakes, and / or failures of an accident to the other
divisions of the company. If a company has multiple locations, then these
issues could cause an accident anywhere. Communication is the key. Luckily,
communication is much easier now, and accident information can be e-mailed
immediately to other off-s ite locations.
There are many different ways to disseminate lessons learned information,
and many companies e-mail out each cause and corrective actions to all.
Others put together a weekly or monthly newsletter to disseminate the
accident information. Communication is the key component.
Review Board
Another important aspect is to have an accident review board to review
the accide nt report to check for quality, consistency, and ensure the faccs ,
causal factors, and corrective actio n s are correct. There are many types
of re view board s. The be st review bo ...
CHAPTER15 Leaming from Accidents While no company want.docxspoonerneddy
CHAPTER15
Leaming from Accidents
While no company wants to have accidents, once they occur, it is
important to learn from these accidents. One of the worst mistakes to make
for a company is to repeat an accident. Accidents are opportunities to fix the
safety program, correct hazardous situations, train employees on the correct
behavior, and ensure systemic problems are corrected. While an accident is
dreadful, we must learn from them.
The key concept of a safety program and the accident investigation program
15 ro prevent accidents and/ or prevent recurrence of an accident. No one
wants to get hurt, but actions/inactions and conditions will dictate an accident.
All 'd aca ents are caused, and there are many consequences of accidents. The
heallh and safety of personnel is the utmost priority, but other issues include
funcuonal c bili' f · fin · al 11 bein apa ty a ter los s, public image and reputation, anc1 we -
g 0oss of sales), and also civil or criminal legal action.
Lessons Learned
"If it ca 0 happen h ' 1 " Thi · the co at t 1s ocation then it can happen anywhere. s 1s
ncept of 1 ' essons learned. One of the most important elements of
159
Parl IV: Pmornting Arddmls
160
accident in vcs t.igat.ion that ha s been discussed is to fi
an . . gure Out Wh
happened and how to prevent It. One of the bigge st mistakes of an . at
. k d kin y acc1de is not learning from your rrusta ·e s an ma · g the same mist k . nt
. h aeagainAu companies need to not 1us1 fix t e problem areas and prev ·
' ent recurren
b)' correcting the problems, but actually develop a system to lea f ce
. rn rorn th
accidents. A lesso ns learned program will ensure that accidents a e
, . . re corrected
not just at o ne locat1on, but at all locations. Also a lessons lea d f
. . rne rorn a
smaller accident can hdp avoid a larger accident from happening. "If ~-e
were really good at learrung from o ur mistakes, two similar accidents would
never occur" Qanson 2009) .
One of the biggest failures of companies is not communicating the
problems, causes , issues, rrustakes, and / or failures of an accident to the other
divisions of the company. If a company has multiple locations, then these
issues could cause an accident anywhere. Communication is the key. Luckily,
communication is much easier now, and accident information can be e-mailed
immediately to other off-s ite locations.
There are many different ways to disseminate lessons learned information,
and many companies e-mail out each cause and corrective actions to all.
Others put together a weekly or monthly newsletter to disseminate the
accident information. Communication is the key component.
Review Board
Another important aspect is to have an accident review board to review
the accide nt report to check for quality, consistency, and ensure the faccs ,
causal factors, and corrective actio n s are correct. There are many types
of re view board s. The be st review bo.
Improving safety for organisations require mere technological solutions and fixes. Understanding processes and plant interactions are equally important. Oftentimes, “blind spots” are recognized as a significant contributor to a major accident. Are you aware of: The Project Execution Woe, The Safety Assessment Hitch, The Technology Squeeze and six other blind spots?
OSHA and National Safety Council - What is a Near Miss?Garrett Foley
The Alliance Safety Program, started by OSHA and the National Safety Council, strives to educate employers and employees about near misses and their key benefits to overall safety.
Overview of the fundamental roles in Hydropower generation and the components involved in wider Electrical Engineering.
This paper presents the design and construction of hydroelectric dams from the hydrologist’s survey of the valley before construction, all aspects and involved disciplines, fluid dynamics, structural engineering, generation and mains frequency regulation to the very transmission of power through the network in the United Kingdom.
Author: Robbie Edward Sayers
Collaborators and co editors: Charlie Sims and Connor Healey.
(C) 2024 Robbie E. Sayers
Explore the innovative world of trenchless pipe repair with our comprehensive guide, "The Benefits and Techniques of Trenchless Pipe Repair." This document delves into the modern methods of repairing underground pipes without the need for extensive excavation, highlighting the numerous advantages and the latest techniques used in the industry.
Learn about the cost savings, reduced environmental impact, and minimal disruption associated with trenchless technology. Discover detailed explanations of popular techniques such as pipe bursting, cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining, and directional drilling. Understand how these methods can be applied to various types of infrastructure, from residential plumbing to large-scale municipal systems.
Ideal for homeowners, contractors, engineers, and anyone interested in modern plumbing solutions, this guide provides valuable insights into why trenchless pipe repair is becoming the preferred choice for pipe rehabilitation. Stay informed about the latest advancements and best practices in the field.
Water scarcity is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two type of water scarcity. One is physical. The other is economic water scarcity.
Courier management system project report.pdfKamal Acharya
It is now-a-days very important for the people to send or receive articles like imported furniture, electronic items, gifts, business goods and the like. People depend vastly on different transport systems which mostly use the manual way of receiving and delivering the articles. There is no way to track the articles till they are received and there is no way to let the customer know what happened in transit, once he booked some articles. In such a situation, we need a system which completely computerizes the cargo activities including time to time tracking of the articles sent. This need is fulfilled by Courier Management System software which is online software for the cargo management people that enables them to receive the goods from a source and send them to a required destination and track their status from time to time.
Sachpazis:Terzaghi Bearing Capacity Estimation in simple terms with Calculati...Dr.Costas Sachpazis
Terzaghi's soil bearing capacity theory, developed by Karl Terzaghi, is a fundamental principle in geotechnical engineering used to determine the bearing capacity of shallow foundations. This theory provides a method to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity of soil, which is the maximum load per unit area that the soil can support without undergoing shear failure. The Calculation HTML Code included.
Industrial Training at Shahjalal Fertilizer Company Limited (SFCL)MdTanvirMahtab2
This presentation is about the working procedure of Shahjalal Fertilizer Company Limited (SFCL). A Govt. owned Company of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation under Ministry of Industries.
Cosmetic shop management system project report.pdfKamal Acharya
Buying new cosmetic products is difficult. It can even be scary for those who have sensitive skin and are prone to skin trouble. The information needed to alleviate this problem is on the back of each product, but it's thought to interpret those ingredient lists unless you have a background in chemistry.
Instead of buying and hoping for the best, we can use data science to help us predict which products may be good fits for us. It includes various function programs to do the above mentioned tasks.
Data file handling has been effectively used in the program.
The automated cosmetic shop management system should deal with the automation of general workflow and administration process of the shop. The main processes of the system focus on customer's request where the system is able to search the most appropriate products and deliver it to the customers. It should help the employees to quickly identify the list of cosmetic product that have reached the minimum quantity and also keep a track of expired date for each cosmetic product. It should help the employees to find the rack number in which the product is placed.It is also Faster and more efficient way.
Final project report on grocery store management system..pdfKamal Acharya
In today’s fast-changing business environment, it’s extremely important to be able to respond to client needs in the most effective and timely manner. If your customers wish to see your business online and have instant access to your products or services.
Online Grocery Store is an e-commerce website, which retails various grocery products. This project allows viewing various products available enables registered users to purchase desired products instantly using Paytm, UPI payment processor (Instant Pay) and also can place order by using Cash on Delivery (Pay Later) option. This project provides an easy access to Administrators and Managers to view orders placed using Pay Later and Instant Pay options.
In order to develop an e-commerce website, a number of Technologies must be studied and understood. These include multi-tiered architecture, server and client-side scripting techniques, implementation technologies, programming language (such as PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and MySQL relational databases. This is a project with the objective to develop a basic website where a consumer is provided with a shopping cart website and also to know about the technologies used to develop such a website.
This document will discuss each of the underlying technologies to create and implement an e- commerce website.
Event Management System Vb Net Project Report.pdfKamal Acharya
In present era, the scopes of information technology growing with a very fast .We do not see any are untouched from this industry. The scope of information technology has become wider includes: Business and industry. Household Business, Communication, Education, Entertainment, Science, Medicine, Engineering, Distance Learning, Weather Forecasting. Carrier Searching and so on.
My project named “Event Management System” is software that store and maintained all events coordinated in college. It also helpful to print related reports. My project will help to record the events coordinated by faculties with their Name, Event subject, date & details in an efficient & effective ways.
In my system we have to make a system by which a user can record all events coordinated by a particular faculty. In our proposed system some more featured are added which differs it from the existing system such as security.
It’s time to consider human factors in alarm management
1. 30 www.cepmagazine.org November 2002 CEP
Alarm Management
n abnormal situation is defined as “any
time an operator needs to manually inter-
vene,” according to the ASM Consortium
(www.mycontrolroom.com/asmconsor-
tium.htm). Manual intervention is gener-
ally prompted by receiving an alarm, or often multiple
alarms in the control room. Abnormal situation manage-
ment (ASM), however, involves more than just keeping
alarm management manageable. ASM must be ad-
dressed properly and made a priority by upper manage-
ment (1), and an appropriate training program must be
put in place (2).
Still, a new approach to safety is needed concerning
ASM. This approach should break the traditional barri-
ers of people, organizations and culture, and put the
control engineer in the driver’s seat again for perfor-
mance improvements that optimize not just control al-
gorithms, but also people and the way they interface
with technology. This means integrating human factors
into ASM.
Human factors and organizational accidents
While many books and articles have been published
on process-plant safety, incidents and near misses still
continue, and engineers keep making the same mistakes
over again. A major reason is that companies do not
have the mechanisms to pass on accumulated knowl-
edge to the next generation. Newer employees must
learn by making the same mistakes were previously.
This is what engineers call loss of corporate knowledge.
Studies done by the ASM Consortium, AIChE, the
American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry
Council and similar organizations have concluded that
80% of the catastrophes are linked to human error. Fig-
ure 1 represents the findings of 18 studies undertaken
by the author, plus information taken from published
databases. The chart shows that only 40% of incidents
are caused by people. What the chart does not show is
the root causes of all incidents. When the root causes
of the categories “Equipment” and “Process” are con-
sidered, 80% of all incidents are due to human error.
Implement these procedures to consider
human factors, not simply human error,
in control-room architecture and reduce
the chance for incidents in the plant.
A
Ian Nimmo,
User Centered Design
Services, LLC
MANAGEMENT
Alarm
IT’S TIME TO CONSIDER
HUMAN FACTORS IN
Photos courtesy of Nova Chemicals.
2. CEP November 2002 www.cepmagazine.org 31
The research also shows that such error affects produc-
tion output, quality and efficiency. The ASM Consortium
measured sites with lost opportunity figures in the 3–12%
range. The data emphasized the role that people and people
systems (i.e., management policies and attitudes) play in
contributing to these losses — from simple mistakes such
as opening the wrong valve, to poor response times in in-
terceding when events are detected. Sometimes, this is sim-
ply caused by poor situation awareness due to distractions
in the control room. Improved profitability and reduced
fixed costs can be achieved by paying attention to human
factors.
Taking a new approach to safety
Human-factors studies emphasize human error, but not
as a means to assign blame. The goal is to find the reason
why errors are made.
Traditional safety approaches focus on modifying work-
ers’ behavior. When an incident occurs, the most common
thing to do is to investigate what employees did or did not
do. Were they following management systems? Were they
paying attention? Did they perform their tasks in the cor-
rect order? This approach often blames the individuals and
seeks a solution such that, after punishment, the workers
will work in a safer manner.
Human-factors evaluation takes a different view. Instead
of looking only at individual behavior, this methodology
looks at what made the error possible. It tries to identify
and eliminate “error-likely” situations by studying the
whole operation, then seeking ways to remove weaknesses.
This approach reduces human error by changing the
workplace — and sometimes worker behavior. There are
situations when operator error is likely or even inevitable,
given the way the system is set up. The whole system must
be examined to find out why an error occurred and how to
eliminate it in the future. The challenge is to do everything
possible to eliminate the weaknesses before an error oc-
curs. This ideal means being diligent in considering human
factors during design, procurement, installation, operations
and maintenance. Hence, the vision here is to engage the
entire production organization in improving reliability, per-
formance and quality.
The human-factors approach involves considering many
aspects of safety and plant operation. For example, this
method should include these factors when performing a
process hazard analysis, when undertaking a root-cause in-
vestigation, when evaluating operating procedures, and so
on. This article will cover only the management of change
(MOC) of people, owing to space limitations. How can a
site ensure that it has enough process operators with the
correct skills and knowledge, ready and prepared to deal
with hazardous scenarios?
In December 1998, after several refinery accidents,
Contra Costa County, CA passed a new industrial safety
ordinance (3). This law requires refineries, and some other
industries in the county, to develop new safety plans. The
plans help to prevent accidental releases of hazardous ma-
terials into the community, and also promote worker safety.
These safety plans departed from the traditional safety ap-
proach, such as EPA’s Risk Management Program, and as-
sumed a new approach, that is, focusing on human factors
(3). The law affects two critical areas that have been sadly
neglected by designers and they are the human workplace,
especially the control room, and people, and the role they
play, and how they interface with the environment and
technology. The regulation actually calls for comprehen-
sive management of change (MOC) policy for people or
organizational changes.
In parallel, in the U.K., the Hazardous Installations Di-
rectorate (HID) of the Health & Safety Executive
(H&SE) passed a regulation to effectively implement a
comprehensive MOC policy for people or organization
changes (4). The staffing methodology is based on an as-
sessment framework developed by Entec, a London-based
consulting firm.
Along with the new regulation is a comprehensive
structured assessment methodology that systematically
covers all relevant issues and will help to prevent over-
looking potential problems in process operation staffing
arrangements when changes are made. The approach pre-
sented here is based on the same principles as both the
Contra Costa regulation and the one put together by the
H&SE based on Entec’s work.
Control-room staffing studies help to rationalize plant
People:
• Fail to detect problems in reams of data
• Are required to make hasty interventions
• May be unable to make consistent responses
• May be unable to communicate well
Process
20%
People
40%
Equipment
40%
Often
Preventable
Mostly
Preventable
Almost Always
Preventable
s Figure 1. About four-fifths of plant catastrophes are linked to human
error once the root causes of incidents are considered, not just looking at
the incidents themselves.
3. staffing based on current and future
automation, the plant’s operating
philosophy, and hiring and training
practices. The H&SE framework
aims to systematically cover all of
the relevant issues and to prevent
the overlooking of potential prob-
lems in process-operation staffing
arrangements.
While control-modernization pro-
jects often afford an opportunity to
reduce control-room staffing, such
changes cannot be undertaken with-
out caution. For example, reductions
in staffing levels could affect the abil-
ity of a site to control abnormal and
emergency conditions; and staffing
cuts may also have a negative effect
on the performance of the staff by af-
fecting the workload, fatigue, etc.
Because of these concerns, organi-
zations need a practical method to as-
sess their existing staffing levels and
the impact on safety of any reduc-
tions in the operations staff.
Assessing staffing levels
The staffing assessment presented
here concentrates on the personnel re-
quirements for responding to haz-
ardous incidents. Specifically, it is
concerned with how staffing affects
the reliability and timeliness of detect-
ing incidents, diagnosing them and re-
covering the plant to a safe state.
The method highlights when too
few persons are being used to con-
trol a process. The assessment is not
designed to calculate a minimum or
optimum number of staff. If a site
finds that its staffing arrangements
“fail” the assessment, then it is not
necessarily the case that staff num-
bers must be increased. Other op-
tions may be available, such as im-
proving user interfaces, event detec-
tion, alarm or trip systems, training or procedures.
The assessment is conducted in two parts. The first is a
physical assessment of performance in a range of scenar-
ios; the second is a ladder assessment of the management
and cultural attributes underlying the control of operations
(Figure 2).
Physical assessment
This assessment is completed for a range of scenarios,
which should include examples of:
• worst-case scenarios requiring implementation of an
off-site emergency plan
• incidents that might escalate without intervention, but
remain on-site
• lesser incidents that require action to prevent the pro-
cess from becoming unsafe.
The engineer must consider whether it is necessary to
assess such scenarios during the day vs. night, or during
Alarm Management
32 www.cepmagazine.org November 2002 CEP
Physical Assessment: Select
a team and gather past incident
data and evidence required
Assess physical ability to deal
with selected major-hazard-
causing scenarios in time
Scenario details,
including time
available,
historical data
Evidence
Evidence
Evidence
Acceptable for all
scenarios assessed?
Identify and
implement
actions to
satisfy physical
assessment
Identify and
implement
actions to
satisfy ladder
assessment
Review and
continuously
improve
Ladder Assessment: Select a
team and gather past incident
data and evidence required
Assess workolad factors
allowing control room to deal
with identified scenarios in time
Assess knowledge and skills
available for dealing with
identified scenarios in time
Assess organizational
factors supporting control
room operation
Acceptable for all ladders?
End
Peer review
Yes
No
Yes
No
s Figure 2. Staffing assessment considers performance in a range of scenarios, and management
practices and cultural attributes.
4. the week vs. weekends, if staffing ar-
rangements vary over these various
times. The scenarios must be defined
in sufficient detail and rely upon rel-
evant historical data, so that they can
be assessed properly. Evidence of re-
liability is required, such as from
simulation exercises, equipment-reli-
ability records and incident reports.
The physical assessment evalu-
ates the plant’s staffing arrangements
against six principles:
1. There should be continuous su-
pervision of the process by skilled
operators, i.e., they should be able to
gather information and intervene
when required.
2. Distractions that could hinder
problem detection should be mini-
mized. These include answering
phones, talking to people in the con-
trol room, performing administrative
tasks and handling nuisance alarms.
3. Additional information required
for diagnosis and recovery should be
accessible, correct and intelligible.
4. Communication links between
the control room and the field should
be reliable. For example, backup
communication hardware that is not
vulnerable to common-cause failure
should be provided where necessary.
Examples of procedures to ensure re-
liability include preventive mainte-
nance routines and regular operation
of backup equipment.
5. The staff required to assist in
diagnosis and recovery should be
available with sufficient time to at-
tend, when required.
6. Distractions that could hinder
the recovery of the plant to a safe
state should be avoided. Necessary
but time-consuming tasks should be
allocated to non-operating staff. Ex-
amples include summoning emergen-
cy services or communicating with
site security.
The bottom line is that the
physical assessment is concerned with determining if
it is possible to detect, diagnose and recover from sce-
narios that could lead to major hazards in the plant.
The assessment provides a yes/no response to the fea-
sibility of physically dealing with each scenario in
sufficient time.
Ladder assessment
Individual and organizational factors are assessed using
ladders. There are ten ladders in total, and these are orga-
nized into three different areas:
Individual factors (workload):
1. Situational awareness — This rates the quality of
CEP November 2002 www.cepmagazine.org 33
Table 1. Example ladder for training and development assess both
individual and organizational factors.
Grade Description
A Process/procedure/staffing changes are assessed for the required changes
to operator training and development programs. Training and assessment
are provided, and the success of the change is reviewed after
implementation.
B All control room (CR) operators receive simulator or desktop exercise
training and assessment on major-hazard scenarios on a regular basis as
part of a structured training and development program.
C There is a minimum requirement for a covering operator to ensure sufficient
familiarity, based on time per month spent as a CR operator. Covering-
operator training and development programs incorporate this requirement.
D Each CR operator has a training and development plan that progresses
through structured, assessed skill steps, combining work experience and
paper-based learning and training sessions. Training needs are identified
and reviewed regularly, and actions are taken to fulfill needs.
W All CR operators receive refresher training and assessment on major-
hazard-scenario procedures on a regular, formal basis.
X New operators receive full, formal induction training followed by assessment
on the process during normal operation and major-hazard scenarios.
Y There is an initial run-through of major-hazard-scenario procedures by peers.
Z There is no evidence of a structured training and development program for
CR operators. Initial training is informally by peers.
Table 2. An example ladder for roles and responsibilities — a ladder is a
behaviorally anchored rating scale that provides pass/fail measures.
Grade Description
A Prior to any proposed change to equipment or procedures, the core
competencies required for the operations team are reviewed and any new
such competencies required after the change are introduced.
B The operations teams are selected and then trained on the basis of the
identified core competencies. Operator development is assessed against
these criteria.
C There is a management control in place to ensure that the core
competencies required for the operations teams are retained during any
staffing changes.
V Additional roles, such as providing first aid or being a part of a search-and-
rescue team, are taken into account when assessing the operations team’s
ability to cope with normal and emergency situations.
W Roles and responsibilities within the operations team are clearly defined so
that each individual knows his/her allocated tasks and responsibilities
during normal and emergency situations.
X A structured approach is used to identify the team’s required competencies.
Y There is a general job description for each member of the operations team.
Z There is no definition of team roles and responsibilities. There is no
identification of core competencies.
5. knowledge on current and near-future situations. Is it pos-
sible to carry out all of the required monitoring checks in
the time available? Tasks looked at include short-term
disturbances, such as writing work permits. Also covered
are shift handover and monitoring conditions over a
week, and re-familiarization after long breaks.
2. Teamwork — Is there a support staff available, possi-
bly from outside of the control room, to assist when there
is above-normal activity? This is the role of outside opera-
tors. Are the roles and procedures defined?
3. Alertness and fatigue — Use of health programs to
monitor the possible symptoms of stress via measure-
ment. The techniques include using questionnaires, mon-
itoring absenteeism, identifying shift patterns that rotate
in reverse rather than forward, and noting shift-pattern
effects on operator fatigue. The sickness rate among op-
erators may indicate problems, as well. The assessment
also considers the effects of lighting and temperature on
operator alertness.
Individual factors (knowledge and skills):
4. Training and development (Table 1) — How is this
done for new operators and to refresh existing ones, partic-
ularly for major-hazard scenarios?
5. Roles and responsibilities (Table 2) — Are these
clearly defined? Is the team composition defined and based
on a structured assessment? Are the roles and responsibili-
ties reviewed to ensure that core competencies are main-
tained before a possible change is made?
6. Willingness to act — This measures the extent to
which operator actions can be influenced by factors such as
cost and environment, over safety concerns.
Organizational factors:
7. Management of operating procedures — How good
is the system for updating procedures, and for validating
and implementing them (including training)?
8. Management of change (MOC) — Evaluates the
use of transitional techniques to ease the change,
whether it is in people, technology or procedures. MOC
is also applied to determine the extent of training when
changes are needed, as identified by the MOC process.
After a change is made, checks should be in place to re-
view its effects.
9. Continuous improvement of control room safety —
Techniques expected for continuous improvement in-
clude: monitoring of product quality; appraisal of opera-
tor performance to promote continuous improvement;
and use of on-site and off-site historical incidents to
improve performance.
10. Management of safety — How strong is the site pol-
icy? How are historical data used to improve performance?
How is the workforce involved in managing safety?
Each of the ten ladders is essentially a behaviorally an-
chored rating scale that provides observable measures and
either passing or failing grades. Next, consideration is
given to eliminating unacceptable risks.
Assessment output
This method identifies areas of unacceptable risk in
process-operation staffing arrangements and provides
target areas for improvement actions. Typical output
actions include:
• Evaluating costs and benefits of the identified
improvement options.
• Further investigation, such as determining the reliabili-
ty of equipment, more-closely analyzing critical tasks, and
checking assumptions about the behavior of leaks.
• Consulting with a human factors expert on
key judgments.
The output from the method is an action plan for each
assessed element. The priority for improvement actions is:
1. Those required to ensure the reliability of the opera-
tions team; they are physically capable of detecting, diag-
nosing and recovering from scenarios.
2. Those necessary to move the staffing arrangements
above the acceptable line on all ladder elements. (Shown as
the bottom area in Tables 1 and 2.)
3. Those required to continuously improve the staffing
arrangements to meet the best practices. Here, the refer-
ences are to those persons that fall short of the target line
or those that are impacted by a change. The main compari-
son is done by doing the assessment before the change and
then again with the changes in mind.
Practical application
The staffing assessment should be conducted similarly
to the way other process safety assessments are carried out.
This means using such techniques as hazard and operabili-
ty (HAZOP) analyses or risk assessments that support a
safety case.
The assessment of a defined production area should be
coordinated and facilitated by one person who is technical-
ly capable and is experienced in applying hazard-identifi-
cation and risk-assessment methods. This role is similar to
that of a HAZOP chairperson.
In addition, the assessment team should consist of:
• Control room operators, both experienced and inexpe-
rienced, plus members from different shift teams.
• Staff that would assist during incidents, perhaps in
giving technical advice to operators or with tasks such as
answering phones.
• Managers or administrators knowledgeable about op-
erating procedures, control system configurations, process
behavior, equipment and system reliability, and safety (in-
cluding risk assessments and criteria).
• Teams may also require assistance from specialists in
human factors.
When to apply the method
It is good practice to apply the method in full and to
review and reapply it periodically. This is determined by
the plant so as to reflect what happens in real life there,
Alarm Management
34 www.cepmagazine.org November 2002 CEP
6. in terms of projects and economic changes to staffing.
Changes in staffing arrangements (or other changes af-
fecting the response to emergency or upset conditions)
should be evaluated prior to implementation. Any
change that could alter the ladder rating is considered to
be a change in the staffing arrangement. A guiding prin-
ciple is that changes should not lead to a reduction in
the assessment rating.
The procedure for analyzing proposed changes is:
1. Produce an up-to-date baseline assessment of the
existing arrangements.
2. Define the proposed change and evaluate it using the
assessment method, modifying the plans until an equal or
better rating is achieved.
3. Reassess the arrangements at a suitable time after im-
plementation (within six months).
Benefits of the method
Using the methodology developed by Entec and the
H&SE, this method was later built into the ASM Best Prac-
tices. The staffing methodology was not available during
that time or it would have been done, as we are doing on
all new projects.
The comments from the participants of the original
studies indicate that the method: brings staffing issues into
the open; enables the adequacy of staffing arrangements to
be gauged and assesses the impact of staffing changes, par-
ticularly reductions; is practical, useable and intelligible to
inspectors and duty holders (i.e., those managers on-site
who have responsibility for the people, and their roles and
responsibilities). Finally, the method is robust and resists
manipulation and massaging of its output.
Now, consider how to design the workspace to optimize
both people and the technology used.
Control building location
The location of a control building can significantly im-
pact the operating team’s performance. The trick is to un-
derstand whether there is a requirement for a strong collab-
orative structure — i.e., the unit console operators talking
and working together with other unit console operators —
as well as the quality and reliability of remote communica-
tions. The question comes down to: Whom is it more im-
portant to have face-to-face communications with? Other
field operators on the same unit, or other console operators
on an adjacent unit that may impact control through feed or
utility relationships among units?
Often, there is not a simple answer to this question. An
example of this complexity arose in locating the control
room for a Nova Chemicals ethylene project. Nova was
going to add a new ethylene plant to a site that already had
three up-and-running ethylene units. A method was devel-
oped for deciding on the location for the control building.
The decision was more complex than just selecting a space
on a map, and considered whether the control rooms for all
three existing ethylene plants and the new one should be
consolidated into a single building. The decision method
also looked at whether other control units on-site should be
consolidated into a centralized control building, as well as
what the benefits of doing this would be. Nova further
evaluated what impact a consolidated control room would
have on operations.
The project team initially undertook a literature search
to identify the existing industry standards, issues and bene-
fits. The team identified a draft ISO standard, “Ergonomic
Design of Control Centers, Parts 1-3,” No. 11064 (from the
International Organization for Standardization, Geneva,
Switzerland) that served as a good basis for a design
methodology, although it did not address the control build-
ing location. The only path forward was to follow sound
engineering practices of project management, identify op-
portunities and review possible problems.
Multi-disciplinary teams met and brainstormed alterna-
tive control building solutions, evaluating the strengths and
weaknesses of each of the proposed alternatives. Each so-
lution was evaluated in four key areas — cost, impact on
people, safety and business opportunities or issues.
Three solutions were considered: a centralized con-
trol building located remotely; a centralized control
building within battery limits; and individual, distribut-
ed-control buildings.
Initially, the team had expected to recommend the
first option (the remote location), although individually,
each team member had his or her own preconceived idea
of what the best solution would ultimately look like. The
great value of performing the evaluation together was
that the team achieved a shared vision for the ultimate
solution. This vision included coming to a clear under-
standing of why compromises had to be made, and what
had to be done to strengthen the weaknesses with the
chosen solution.
The team did a good job of identifying the real costs
for the project. For example, estimating the costs of
building a remote centralized control building included
those costs for constructing a local building for field op-
erators and a safe haven for maintenance personnel and
contractors. A centralized control room would have dif-
ferent capital costs, depending upon whether it was built
remotely or within battery limits. The latter would re-
quire a blast-resistant structure, while a remote structure
would require additional buildings to be constructed
within the battery limits. The evaluation also considered
any demolition costs, such as those for moving existing
piping and equipment.
In evaluating the impact that the various options would
have on personnel, the team focused on communication,
collaboration, team activities, distractions, delays, reliance
on technology, staffing levels and placement of expertise.
In evaluating each alternative for safety, the team con-
sidered possible exposure to hazards. It was argued that the
CEP November 2002 www.cepmagazine.org 35
7. closer the building were to the unit, the more effective the
occupants would be in operating and maintaining the plant.
This is because they would be closer to the hardware they
manage and the people with whom they interact most
often. Further, there seems to be a lessened risk of an acci-
dent, due to better communication among key groups.
On the other hand, the closer the control room operators
were to the unit, the greater the risk they would run of suf-
fering the consequences of an incident, should one occur.
To balance these hazards, consideration must be given
to the protection afforded to people by the buildings they
occupy. The closer to the hazards, the more protection the
buildings must provide, hence, the more they will cost.
Business opportunities, such as optimization and speed
of response to change, must be weighed against poor per-
formance due to communication breakdowns, lack of team-
work, and loss of knowledge and expertise.
Based on the evaluation, the team selected individual
control buildings for this site. (See the lead photos.) This
solution was more expensive, but had a larger positive im-
pact on people, since several of the complex’s units were
batch processes that required close collaboration between
field and console operations. The individual ethylene plants
had no strong requirements for improved communications
among each other, other than the existing solutions, such as
computer monitoring of other units by a single unit, and
use of telephones and radios.
In fact, a best practice was identified in the way Nova
operators work together during disturbances and how they
rehearse potential scenarios after an event. Most opera-
tors deal with a disturbance, and when it is over, they go
back to reading a paper or put their feet up and wait for
the next alarm.
At Nova, they handle the disturbance, then all the op-
erators come into the control room to review what was
done and what potentially could happen if the problem
were not fully resolved. A plan is prepared to handle any
future disturbance or event.
(Note that best practices were identified by the ASM
program through many site studies at each of the member
company sites, identifying and comparing practices across
companies, and then the consortium members agreed
which were the best ones. The consortium developed a
white-paper called “Effective Operating Practices” that
summarizes the main ones.)
The team felt that this solution provided a better busi-
ness opportunity for several reasons: individuals would
focus on the business; security would be improved; em-
ployees would feel an increased ownership of problems;
there would be less interference and confusion; and there
would be less impact from common-mode failures.
Control building design
This initial project established a new way of carrying
out control building projects that is used successfully at
Nova. The first critical step is creating a shared vision for
the control building and how it will operate. The activities
in this step include:
1. Interview a cross-section of management, engi-
neering and operations personnel, usually over a one-
week period.
2. Review the current operating practices and opportuni-
ties to implement the company’s best practices.
3. Analyze the building location, based on cost, people
implications, a safety-related risk assessment that considers
API RP 752 (“Management of Hazards Associated with
Location of Process Plant Buildings, CMA Manager’s
Guide” (4)), and the business case.
4. Review the impact of the project and its alternatives
on people and the organization.
5. Develop an order-of-magnitude cost for each of the
alternatives, based on the building type and square footage.
6. Identify the benefits and project risks of various
alternatives.
7. Develop a list of recommendations covering priorities
and ways of achieving long- and short-term goals that meet
the shared vision.
Once the shared vision is created, the work of the de-
tailed control building design can commence. Design be-
gins with the operator and works outward. The major
activities include:
• Completing a task analysis for present and future
jobs, especially when remote centralized solutions are im-
plemented. Key issues include whether rotation is re-
quired between jobs and whether the field operators will
become equipment specialists, once the new control room
is up and functioning.
• Clearly documenting the form and function of the cur-
rent human/machine interface. What information does the
operator need? When does he or she need it, and how and
where will it be gotten? Which tasks will be done manually
and which will be done by automation?
• Developing a functional specification that includes
console layouts and room adjacencies and priorities.
• Detailing a control-building design specification that
encompasses the mechanical systems (heating, ventilation
and air conditioning (HVAC), security, lighting, communi-
cations, including operator log books, telephones, video
conferencing, large overview screens, and all other aspects
of the building’s operation). The greatest benefit of using
an experienced control room architect will be found in the
development of the detailed design.
Selecting an architect and builder
The selection of the control room architect and the
builder can affect the functional use of the building. Archi-
tects not only carry out the building design, but also func-
tion as project managers to coordinate the work of different
disciplines that create the building. The architect is in
charge of structural, HVAC, acoustic and lighting engi-
Alarm Management
36 www.cepmagazine.org November 2002 CEP
8. neers, CAD operators, and interior designers. This sounds
good, but some architectural firms that properly design the
control-room structure may lack the needed the project
management expertise to meet a company’s standard, and
their ability to understand and satisfy the functional re-
quirements is almost impossible, based on their perception
of chemical plants.
Since architects often are the project managers as well,
the engineer must select a firm with the right people and
experience to avoid problems in the final product. Such
problems can affect the performance of the control room
operators. For example, the acoustics may be so poor that
the operators cannot hear themselves think when audible
alarms start to proliferate, radio noise escalates and conver-
sations become loud and stressful.
Lessons learned on the Nova project
Although the draft ISO standard (11064) did not explain
how to do the job, it did provide clues. Section 1 (of six)
states that the most important step is to get a shared vision
and involve all relevant employees. Past experience carry-
ing out this type of activity reveals that the team must get
senior management’s view of the current situation and ex-
tract a challenging vision for the unit, initially for the next
five years and then for 20 years. Interviews with other
managers, project staff, and other employees identified
how well (or poorly) they shared the management vision
and how well management understands whether the policy
matches the corporate culture.
Interviews with users of the building, such as engineers,
managers and supervisors, identified how they interface
with the process and the primary users of the building —
the operators. The control room operators were not always
able to articulate what the future looks like, but they know
what works and what does not in the existing environment.
Also, they have insight into what will and will not work in
a new solution.
It is more efficient and productive to interview man-
agers individually for an hour and spend a good part of a
shift in the control room with operators, observing and
asking casual questions, as well as getting their buy-in on
a potential solution. The operators were told that the de-
sign process is iterative, whereby the design was refined
by many reviews with the multi-disciplinary team until
each person in the control room during all the shifts un-
derstood why something was proposed and why some
ideas were rejected.
Creating a shared vision also helps to understand: how
people do their jobs currently and how they may do them
in the future; to whom they need to be adjacent; with
whom they have loose communications or collaborations;
and which support functions are the most important to
place as close as possible to the control room. The infor-
mation gathered identified whether the operators need to
see each other’s screens, whether they should always have
eye contact, how much verbal communication is required,
and what shared facilities are subject to common-mode
failures. The aim was to understand the working patterns,
whether people get information from other operator’s
screens, or whether the dependence is on the operator hav-
ing face-to-face communication to relay a problem. There
may be a strong reliance on phones or radios, and the im-
pact of a common-mode failure in the control room had to
be determined. In a worst case scenario, the operators may
lose phones, radios and computers, which has happened in
major incidents in the last five years.
How and when are people segregated to avoid distur-
bances, such as issuing permits at the beginning of a day
and closing them at the end of the day? How is traffic con-
trolled in the building? How will the design allow viewing,
yet isolate disturbances and noise?
Once this information is collected, a console layout can
be developed, based on communications and collaboration;
a control room layout can be created, based on the opera-
tors’ need for information; and, finally, the entire control
building can be laid out, based on priority adjacencies (for
example, which is most important, the rest room, the
kitchen, the conference room, the supervisor’s office, the
engineering workstation, etc.?).
The Nova project successfully maintained one-on-one
communication and collaboration between the field opera-
tors and console operators, and, at the same time, kept the
traffic flow to a part of the building that was away from
where console operators were working. This was done by
creating a separate field/operator work area.
Further, the project was set up such that supervisors and
managers had a place where they could observe how the
team was progressing, without crowding the operator. The
application development engineers were able to work in
isolation, but still be close to observe and communicate
with operators during the testing and commissioning of
new software applications.
The other turn that the project took was that Nova had a
vision for providing tools for operators on 12-h shifts to
maintain vigilance and deal with sleep deprivation in the
transition from the day shift to the night shift. Nova had
developed a loss-prevention standard that would support
the healthy-body/healthy-mind attitude. For example, an
operator often struggles to stay awake because his or her
body is physically saying that it should be asleep and, at
the same time, not much activity is going on because the
process is running smoothly and is not disturbed. As a so-
lution, Nova invested in an exercise room for operators to
use during quite periods and scheduled breaks.
The company also established “Rest Recovery” rooms
(nap rooms) in which an operator with a sleep problem
can obtain permission to take a 40-min nap, as long as the
plant monitoring is covered, and the need is genuine and
approved by the team of operators. During the nap, the op-
erator does not get into the full sleep cycle. He or she sits
CEP November 2002 www.cepmagazine.org 37
9. in a recliner and is able to fall into the first few of stages
of non-REM sleep, thus being fit for over 11 hours of pro-
ductive shift work, rather than being slow to respond and
sluggish for the whole shift. Nova also invested in dynam-
ic circadian lighting systems to help operators adjust to
night work.
This control building is also unique because it has a
maintenance block and a small administrative office asso-
ciated with it, due to the extreme winter conditions in that
part of Canada. This impacts traffic flow, parking, noise
and available adjacencies.
In all, the methodology produced an outstanding build-
ing. But the building was not the only good thing to
emerge from this project. The design process identified
other opportunities for business advantages. The building
was designed to ensure that the operators and other per-
sonnel have good situation awareness, which is also re-
flected in the console design and the use of custom con-
soles to meet the needs of the operators. The information
presented at the consoles is optimized and designed to
meet best practices.
After reviewing the best of the best alarm management
and graphic displays, Nova Chemicals synergized the
work of these companies with the ASM Consortium
guidelines and developed a state-of-the-art alarm manage-
ment system, which was not done as a one-off, that is,
something that is done once at the beginning of the project
and is never updated. What was done for Nova is some-
thing that will be used on all future projects and will be
used throughout the life cycle of the plant. Nova devel-
oped a company loss-prevention standard that reflected the
work of EEMUA’s “Alarm Management Guidelines” and
the IEC 1508 standard, among others. Plus, there was
input from other ASM Consortium members. EEMUA is a
U.K. organization of manufacturers that writes recom-
mended practices for industry. EEMUA was formed in
1983 to “reduce costs and improve safety by sharing expe-
rience and expertise, and by promotion of distinct engi-
neering users interests” (www.eemua.co.uk/index2.htm).
A long-standing issue in control rooms is poor design of
displays. Therefore, Nova addressed the navigation of in-
formation and the quality of the displays, based on er-
gonomic and human-factors standards identified by the
ASM Consortium and work that Nova commissioned.
Nova’s success has prompted the ASM Consortium to
sponsor a project to measure the benefits of the features
implemented at this site. The basic methodology confirmed
that a shared vision is important and that a feasibility study
has to be done first. CEP
Alarm Management
38 www.cepmagazine.org November 2002 CEP
IAN NIMMO is president and a founder of User Centered Design Services
(40218 N. Integrity Trail, Anthem, AZ 85086; Phone: (623) 764-0486;
Fax: (623) 551-4018; E-mail: inimmo@mycontrolroom.com: Website
www.mycontrolroom.com), an ASM Consortium affiliate member and
an ASM service provider. Nimmo served for 10 years as a senior
engineering fellow and a founder and program director for the ASM
Consortium for Honeywell Industrial Automation & Control (Phoenix).
Before joining Honeywell, he worked for 25 years as an electrical
designer, instrument/electrical engineer, and computer applications
manager for Imperial Chemical Industries in the U.K. Nimmo has
specialized in computer-control safety for seven years, and has
extensive experience in batch control and continuous operations.
He developed the control-hazard operability methodology (ChazOp)
during his time at ICI, and has written over 100 papers and contributed
to several books on the subject. He studied electrical and electronic
engineering at Teeside (U.K.) Univ. He is a member of IEEE, and a
senior member of ISA.
Literature Cited
1. Nimmo, I., “Adequately Address Abnormal Situation Management,”
Chem. Eng. Progress, 91 (9), pp. 36–45 (Sept. 1995).
2. Bullemer, P., and I. Nimmo, “Tackle Abnormal Situation Manage-
ment with Better Training,” Chem. Eng. Progress, 94 (1), pp. 43–54
(Jan. 1998).
3. “Human Factors Industrial Safety Ordinance,” 98-48, and Amend-
ments, 2000-20, Contra Costa County, CA (1998 and 2000).
4. Brabazon, P., and H. Conlin,“Assessing the Safety of Staffing Ar-
rangements for Process Operations in the Chemical and Allied In-
dustries,” Contract Research Report 348/2001, prepared by Entec
U.K. Ltd. (London) for the Health & Safety Executive (2001).
5. “Management of Hazards Associated with Location of Process Plant
Buildings, CMA Manager’s Guide”, RP 752, American Petroleum
Institute, Washington, DC (May 1995).
Further Reading
“Ergonomic Checkpoints: Practical and Easy-To-Implement Solutions
for Improving Safety, Health, and Working Conditions, International
Labour Organization, www.ilo.org (1996).
Health & Safety Executive, “Reducing Error and Influencing Be-
haviour,” HSG4, H&SE (U.K.) (1999).
Kletz, T., “Computer Control & Human Error,” Gulf Professional Pub-
lishing, Houston, TX (1995).
Kletz, T., “Lessons from Disaster: How Organizations Have No Memo-
ry and Accidents Recur,” Gulf Professional Publications, Houston,
TX (1993).
Miles, R., “Solving Human Factor Issues as Applied to the Workforce,
presented at 2nd International Workshop on Human Factors in Off-
shore Operations, Health & Safety Executive, U.K., available from
bob.miles@hse.gsi.gov.uk (2002).
Parker, S. K., and H. M. Williams, “Effective Teamworking: Re-
ducing the Psychosocial Risks,” Institute of Work Psychology, Univ.
of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K. (2001).
Reason, J., “Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents,” Ash-
gate Publishing (1990).
Reason, J., “Human Error,” Cambridge University Press (1990).
Acknowledgment
The author wishes to acknowledge the work on staffing methodology
from Entec and the Health & Safety Executive.