Title: Safety By Design as Applied to the Design and Fabrication of Rig 200
Abstract: Safety By Design as Applied to the Design and Fabrication of Rig 200 Warren G. Hubler; Warren G. Hubler Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar H.D. Roberts H.D. Roberts Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the IADC/SPE Drilling Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 1996. Paper Number: SPE-35115-MS https://doi.org/10.2118/35115-MS Published: March 12 1996 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Hubler, Warren G., and H.D. Roberts. "Safety By Design as Applied to the Design and Fabrication of Rig 200." Paper presented at the IADC/SPE Drilling Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 1996. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/35115-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll ProceedingsSociety of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition Search Advanced Search AbstractThe foundation for safety of any operation is determined long before people, procedures and equipment come together to provide a service or produce a product. It is determined during design and construction. This paper begins by outlining the systems safety approach to minimizing hazards and integrating safety into the design and engineering of an operation (Part I). It describes methods for identifying, analyzing and eliminating work place hazards. Part II of the paper describes the application of systems safety tools to the design and fabrication of a new construction, highly mechanized, platform drilling rig. Implementation of the systems safety approach impacts directly on safe, productive and cost effective operations.ProblemTraditional methods of accident prevention and hazards management are generally reactive. These methods include compliance with government regulations, conformance to industry standards, physical inspections, work place audits, accident investigations and behavior modification after an incident. Compliance and conformance methods are applied during the design and engineering phase of operations. Project management focuses on doing just enough for safety to satisfy government requirements or customer specifications. Anything above these established standards produces potential cost overruns. Acceptance testing and physical inspection then follow to identify hazards built-in during actual construction. Some improvements are made in response to the inspection. However, other hazards are considered too costly to correct and are ignored. W. Edwards Deming noted that inspection to improve quality (which in the author's opinion includes safety) is performed TOO LATE in the system. Instead of correcting known hazards properly, management relinquishes control of hazards to employees who must undergo continuous training and follow strict procedures in order to minimize their exposure.The next accident prevention measure in the life cycle of the operation is regular audit of the work place by management or safety professionals. The audits identify minor physical hazards associated with things like handrails, stairs and ladders. However, they often fail to identify the major, unforeseen hazards that are waiting to be unleashed. In time, an unrecognized hazard eventually reaches its full potential and produces serious harm. An accident investigation is initiated in response to the incident. Corrective action is taken to ensure that training is put into practice, procedures are followed and similar unsafe conditions or unsafe practices are eliminated. Unfortunately, corrective action occurs AFTER THE FACT of injury to personnel or damage to property.Even behavior modification is reactive as an accident prevention tool when used in response to an incident. Behavior based safety is built on a fundamental concept put forth by W.H. Heinrich in his book, "Industrial Accident Prevention" first published in 1931 and revised in 1950. Heinrich theorized that 88% of all accidents are caused by operator error - not unsafe conditions in the work place. This concept is reinforced today by the DuPont Safety Training Observation Program (STOP) which suggests 96% of all lost workday and restricted workday cases are caused by the unsafe acts of people. The drawback to this concept is that many companies limit their incident investigations solely to the identification and elimination of an unsafe act which contributed to the incident. More significantly, they apply this concept to find fault with the employee which destroys organizational trust. According to Dr. Dan Petersen, industrial psychologist and author of Techniques of Safety Management, in most cases, unsafe behavior is normal behavior; it's the result of normal people reacting to their environment, an environment constructed by management and engineering.Operator error and unsafe behaviors are not typically the underlying cause(s) of an accident. They are simply the last common pathway to an incident. They are symptoms of a much bigger systems problem. The root causes lie within the systems which management controls. This point is reinforced in the Total Quality Management field by Mary Walton, who wrote in her book, The Deming Management Method, that people work in a system created by management which only management can change. The behavioral approach to safety is of little value when the roots of the problem extend much deeper than operator error. Organizations which restrict themselves to the traditional methods described above struggle through cycles of strong and weak performance or experience performance plateaus.P. 601 Keywords: us government, hazard control, personnel, procedure, injury, probability, ladc spe 35115, upstream oil & gas, application, hazard elimination Subjects: Safety, Operational safety This content is only available via PDF. 1996. IADC/SPE Drilling Conference You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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