Professor gives talk on risk management

Business

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
THE oil and gas industry greatly rely on defences, or barrier-thinking, to protect it against process safety incidents, a group of petroleum engineers has been told.
Professor of Engineering Psychology at the UK-based Heriot-Watt University Dr Ron McLeod (pictured) told members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Port Moresby that human performance continued to be the single most widely relied on barrier for oil and gas industries in the world.
“It can be used whether in its own right, or in implementing, inspecting, maintaining, and supporting engineered defences for preventing incidents threats,” he said.
But McLeod said human error, in its many forms, continued to be a significant threat to the reliability of engineered and organisational defences.
McLeod said many organisations struggled to know how to ensure that the human defences they relied on were as robust as they reasonably could be when those strategies were developed and implemented.
“Some companies provide training for their workers but not good or prefessional training as their programmes do not meet the requirements of good safety barriers.
“Human factors in barrier thinking involve decision making, actions and things people do, and the bridge in communication between people.”