Process industries and Human Factors: Where are we

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Process industries and Human Factors Where are
we?
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Its all about us

• Area that seems poorly understood
• But a subject matter that will be familiar to
  most people
• Definition Human factors refers to
  environmental, organisational and job factors and
  human and individual characteristics which
  influence behaviour at work in a way which can
  affect safety

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Human Factors and Safety
How to achieve the last step?
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PRISM Human Factors Network

• Objectives The improvement of safety in the
  European process industries trough raising
  awareness of, and sharing experience in, the
  application of Human Factors approaches and
  stimulating their development and improvement to
  address industry relevant problems in batch and
  continuous process industries.

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PRISM Orientation

• Focus on

• Cultural and organisational factors

• Optimising human performance

• Human factors in high demand situations

• Human factors as a part of the engineering design
  process

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• Cultural and Organisational Factors

2.Optimising human performance
3.Human factors in high demand situations
4.Human factors as a part of the engineering
design process
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Behaviour
Teamworking
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Safety Culture a definition?

• The way things are done
• The attitude of staff
• Beliefs, norms and behavioural dispositions that
  impact on safety

What is your definition?
What does a good culture look like?
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Safety Climate

• The concrete way to approach Safety Culture
• The tangible outputs of the Safety Culture as
  viewed by individual group at a particular point
  in time
• Measurement through surveys, questionnaires.

Do the questionnaires hide the safety culture of
the company?
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Team working Definition

• A high-performing team of 5-15 people, with the
  technical skills , knowledge and authority to
  make decisions that would formerly have been made
  by a supervisor.
• They are appointed to manage themselves because
  the team members are the most familiar with the
  task they perform, therefore are the best to make
  improvements.

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Team working

• Strong and positive relationship can exist
  between self-managed team and safety

• More involvement in safety management
• Maintenance of good safety performances with
  safer working practices

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Behavioural safety key principles

• Programme ownership
• Definition of safe and unsafe behaviours
• Establishment of a baseline
• Training

• Observation
• Feedback
• Reinforcement
• Goal-setting
• Review

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Barriers and pitfalls

• It can take a long time to see the benefits
• Employees may dislike the idea of observing
  others and being observed
• Existing communications can be overloaded with
  the information produced

This can lead to inaction and discouragement
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Success factors

• Active participation of workforce and management
• Issue card reminders and checklists of behaviours
  that need to be observed
• Constantly reinforce and encourage behavioural
  change

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• Cultural and Organisational Factors

2.Optimising human performance
3.Human factors in high demand situations
4.Human factors as a part of the engineering
design process
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Optimising Human Performance
Through
Procedures
Training
Incorporation of Human Factors in the design
process (cf FG4)
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Procedures and compliance

• Well known fact people dont respect procedures!

Complex, not updated, too restrictive, do not
describe the best way to do the job
WHY?
Are the procedures written to help the readers or
to protect the writer?
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Procedures
My procedure will ensure the task is performed
correctly
I know how to do this task, I dont need a
procedure
Do we need a procedure for each task?
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Decision Aid
No Written Instruction required NWI Job Aid
required e.g checklist/memory aid JA Step By
Step instruction required SBS
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Training and competence

• Training helps people acquire the skills,
  knowledge and attitudes to make them competent in
  the health and safety aspects of their works.

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Training

• Should be defined as a function of the needs
  found in the plant

What does the trainee need to learn?
What skills?

• Implementation of a training management

Annual training plan, training team, assessment,
refreshment
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• Cultural and Organisational Factors

2.Optimising human performance
3.Human factors in high demand situations
4.Human factors as a part of the engineering
design process
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Cognitive task load analysis

• Time occupied
• Level of information processing
• Task set switching

The combination of the three load factors
determines the cognitive task load
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3D Cognitive Model
High task load
Task load matches operator mental capacity
Sub optimal performance due to under load
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The TNO model
Association of
Function analysis
Cognitive task load analysis
The integration of both these models in
combination with a scenario-based context
assessment will help identify potential high
demand situations.
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Why alarm handling?
A wide issue about assuring the human response to
an alarm
Operators routinely ignore alarm in the plant
control room
Operators facing as few as 10 alarms a minute in
an emergency will quickly abandon the alarm list
to reduce stress. They will find a way to solve
the problem without using the alarms.
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How to face this problem?
Implementation of an alarm philosophy
Notify operators of events required more focused
attention
Help to prioritise response
Guide operator towards most appropriate response
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Benefits

• Easier to interpret alarms for operators
• Better control of processes
• Help avoid accidents

A typical plant can save approximately 3 500
000 per year by providing good control during
plant incidents and transition events such as
start-ups, feed changes, etc.
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• Cultural and Organisational Factors

2.Optimising human performance
3.Human factors in high demand situations
4.Human factors as a part of the engineering
design process
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• We cannot change the Human Condition but we can
  change the conditions in which humans work.
• James Reason

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How to incorporate HF in the design process?

• To take human factors into account as part of the
  process engineering design process requires the
  design of
• Equipment,
• Operations,
• Procedures,
• Work environments.
• such that they are compatible with the
  capabilities, limitations and needs of the workers

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Procedure to reduce Human Errors within a project
Identification of Errors Causes

• Task analysis

• Action error analysis

Performance shaping factor
Design solution to address the Error Causes
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Task analysis

• Identification of the list of human operations
  performed and their relation to the system task
• Specification of the systems manning level
• Identification of training needs
• Writing of operating procedures

Associated tools Hierarchical task analysis
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Action error analysis

• Review of plant safety in case the operator acts
  wrongly or does not act at all
• Check of the operators workload in case of
  demands occurring simultaneously or in fast
  sequence
• Review if the operator is able to relate alarm
  and the cause clearly

Associated tools the cognitive support model
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Performance shaping factors
Identify if there could be factors that affect
the task performance
stress, work procedures, quality of work
environment
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Design solution to address the error causes
Maintainability and Operability
Automation
Designing to reduce Human Error Precursors
Process Control and Monitoring 
Process Operations and Layout
Work Environment
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Conclusion

• No more need to demonstrate that Human Factors
  improve Safety
• Which will be the next step?

Too soon to think about it still a long way to
go with Human Factors
More information available on www.prism-network.o
rg
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Thank you for your attention