Abstract
Despite the efforts to improve frontline work execution procedures and practices as a part of HSEQ and Sustainable Development, the industry's efforts often result in better rulebooks, best practices and more robust procedures yet no noticeable decrease in the number of HiPO's, incidents and fatalities. Many of the existing control systems, like permit to work, only manage each job or task as a single unrelated point of activity and provide us with no line of sight on the potential cumulative risk of frontline work. Furthermore, typically the industry is managing work execution as one of its most important business processes on paper. Paper systems provide no data and without data there is no effective and scalable manner to manage day to day frontline operational risk.
Technology can play an integral role in guiding and structuring decision making by ensuring safety rules, best practices and lessons learned are deeply embedded into operational processes for frontline workers and management. In this way, risk controls and guidance can take shape outside of the ‘rule book’ and become an integral part of routine operations. The work execution process can be captured thus providing a window into how well frontline operational risks are being managed.
Using a customer data set of frontline work execution data and a copy of their incident and accident information, we can demonstrate how an organization, through the use of technology, can use planned and actual real time job and hazard data to effectively manage their operational risk and head off potential incidents before they occur. By showing what issuers and approvers of frontline work would have seen in terms of the actual cumulative risk score for actual frontline planned work, we will be able to demonstrate they would have had the visibility to know where to act and when thus potentially avoiding or minimizing the scope of an incident.
Addressing Work Execution with the right combination of people, process and technology can establish line of sight on the potential cumulative risk of frontline work in order to provide insight and oversight to make better decisions around operational risk in order to improve safe, reliable and compliant operations. Managers can now exercise oversight and use the data to not only demonstrate compliance, but build the foundation for continually improving operational standards and performance.
