How can the Petroleum Industry Benefit from Human Reliability Analysis?

Abstract

In the petroleum industry, the study and impact of human reliability on safe and efficient operations is receiving heightened awareness. According to recent studies, human errors contributed to an estimated 60 to 90 percent of all accidents across many industries (petroleum, nuclear and aviation industries, etc.). Human errors can result in two possible outcomes of concern: safety risks and the cost of failure. In operations where the consequences of accidents may be unbearable, the emphasis on safety drives the study and research of human reliability. This effort has led to a number of human reliability analysis (HRA) methods, and they provide useful references for managing human errors. This paper examines how the petroleum industry could utilize and benefit from the available HRA methods by applying them to daily operations. Several HRA methods are reviewed in this paper from three aspects: human error identification, human error prediction of given tasks, and factors that contribute to human errors. A good data collection system can substantially support the HRA study qualitatively and quantitatively. This paper also introduces a practice for human error data collection that was implemented in the nuclear industry—human event repository analysis (HERA). Suggestions and remarks are provided about developing similar human error data collection systems tailored for the petroleum industry. The expected benefits of HRA include a better understanding of the causes and influencing factors of human errors in specific operation conditions, and insights into error-reduction measures for reducing accident risk and the cost of product failure.

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