Presentation
Identifying Barriers to Stop-Work Authority, Ultimate Work Authority, Safety Reporting, and Employee Participation in Offshore Energy Domain
SessionME5: Macroergonomics
DescriptionIn the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in 2010, a joint investigation team comprised of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement was assembled to investigate the incident. Findings from the investigation revealed that a combination of human error, equipment failure, and lack of regulations contributed to the disaster. This led to the introduction of four new safety elements: Stop-work authority (SWA), Ultimate work authority (UWA), Reporting unsafe conditions and actions, and Employee participation, or 'SURE' programs. Although the purpose of these new safety programs was to promote proactive safety efforts for offshore energy facilities, concerns have been expressed toward limited implementation of these programs in practice. Therefore, the current study aims to identify barriers to the implementation of the SURE programs using a qualitative analysis of interviews with offshore workers, supervisors, and managers. Preliminary analysis of these interviews suggests that offshore energy workers face some barriers including conflicting safety cultures between cooperative organizations, and fears of retaliation for delaying production or other offshore work. After identifying barriers to 'SURE' programs, we plan to develop and test new solutions for reporting unsafe conditions.
Contributors
Alternate Presenter
Event Type
Industry/Practitioner Content
Lecture
TimeThursday, October 16th3pm - 3:20pm CDT
LocationGrand A
Macroergonomics
Similar Presentations