This paper presents a different and more proactive approach to safety innovation based on work done in support of General Aviation (GA) safety improvement. The approach is highly transferable to other industries and environments and delivers systematic means to proactively evaluate and manage both safety innovations and the rate of creation of safety innovations to improve safety performance. Theoretical root cause models of two of the leading causes of general aviation fatalities were developed by a team of highly experienced aviation and industry experts. This approach was novel in that the selection of these two "classes of accidents" was proactive, based on historical data for the major causes of fatalities. The models therefore represent a complete and theoretical picture of fatalities causes, rather than being based on specific investigations that address individual incidents as is the norm in our industry. This approach led to several surprising and valuable findings. First, development of the models created a deep and complete picture of potential fatality causes across a class of accidents and thus created a shared and common understanding of hazards as well as common causal language transferable across the GA community and beyond. Second, the breadth and complexity of the models revealed the need to apply weighting factors to identify hazard causes to focus innovation attention and optimize innovation investments. However, since there are no shared causal models, accident investigations and data are not gathered or structured to align with these. In turn, this makes the understanding of accident causes less consistent, and probabilistic analysis of causes difficult at best. Third, with shared causal models and aligned data, systematic innovation is enabled. This "active learning cycle" creates a systematic yet open-source process that can be managed and measured proactively, focusing on the most valuable improvements to emphasize. Accountability for improvement can then be established to further drive innovation and progress. Ultimately, an active learning cycle transforms traditional, reactive accident investigations and mitigations into a systematic, purposeful, and measurable process for proactive safety performance improvement. Also, with common language, data and processes, cross industry safety challenges can be addressed cooperatively, and innovations can be leveraged.

Deepwater developments CAN be affordable in low price environments! One key is to view designs through a new lens as we create our development concepts. This paper describes how Shell un-shackled the talents of the industry's engineering and construction communities to create very viable, low cost development systems for potential Gulf of Mexico prospects. The paper speaks to the ways that corporate orthodoxies were challenged to enable these solutions, engaging Shell's technical experts creatively to define new solutions. The results of our findings were both surprising and compelling. Most importantly, there continues to be space for new, low cost deep water developments. This paper presents an alternative approach to the design and execution of low cost deep water development systems that are demonstrably affordable in a low price environment. The paper describes how Shell un-shackled the talents of the industry's engineering and construction communities to create very viable, low cost development systems for potential Gulf of Mexico prospects. It speaks to the ways that corporate orthodoxies were challenged to enable these solutions, engaging Shell's technical experts creatively to define new solutions. The approach used was simultaneously rigorous and un-fettered. Shell's efforts began by defining bare-bones surface and subsea facilities that included only minimal systems and sparing, and smaller compliments of Operations personnel. Shell relied heavily on input from the contractor community to define these initial, minimum systems. During the subsequent review of these facilities designs, Shell asked of all internal stakeholder a series of key questions designed to make visible incremental costs and functionalities of additional systems above the proposed minimums. This bottoms-up approach resulted in the selection of only high value-added functionalities that mitigate business risk, while making transparent the decision processes that lead to them. The final designs represented very workable, operable and maintainable systems that reduced capital cost by between 15 and 25%, based solely on scope reductions. As a result of this approach, Shell has reset the baseline from which they will develop future prospects. We conclude from this approach that deep water developments can be affordable in low price environments. One key is to view designs through a new lens as we create our development concepts. Most importantly, there continues to be space for new, low cost deep water developments into the future.

Safety performance in the drilling industry continues to pose a major challenge to both Contractors and Operators. Historical accident rates, while lower than they were a decade ago, remain at unacceptably high levels despite intense focus by all stakeholders, and the use of a wide range of safety systems. A potentially novel approach to improving safety performance has been piloted by Shell Oil Company. This approach - Intrinsic Safety Analysis - uses a measurement system based on first-principles to examine the inherent safety of each operation on three parameters - the energy in the operation, the containment of that energy, and the exposure of personnel to the energy. The resulting Intrinsic Safety Exposure (ISE) gives a direct measure of the potential for an accident in each step of an operation, regardless of the novelty of the operation, or the historical experience with it. Having this measure of the ISE enables several potent approaches that yield increasingly significant long-term improvements by:Allowing Contractors and Operators to identify which operations are intrinsically less safe and to put in place remedial measures for those with high exposurePointing the way for engineers to re-design operations and equipment such that they are intrinsically safer, using such powerful tools as Value Engineering to create designs with lower ISEIntegrating ISE thinking across the lifecycle of equipment and entire assetsEnabling a rigorous value-ranking of alternative investments to improve safety performanceBenchmarking and comparing ISE across assets and between competing operationsEstablishing long term corporate goals for ISE Moreover, analysis of ISE fits well with other value-improving activities and decision making tools commonly used in our industry. The long term benefits of this approach may be to drive the safety performance to new levels, while reducing costs and time. This paper intends to expose the industry to this new approach and invite a maturing of the method as a potential new avenue for making a step change in safety performance Introduction Safety performance in the drilling industry continues to pose a major challenge to both Drilling Contractors and Operators. Historical accident rates, while lower than they were a decade ago, remain at unacceptably high levels despite intense focus and the use of a wide range of safety systems by all stakeholders, as can be seen in the IADC ASP Program data below (1)

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