The relationship between human factors and plant maintenance reliability in a petroleum processing organisation

Despite the considerable emphasis on improving maintenance reliability in the petroleum industry by adopting an engineering approach (International Standards Organization, 2006b), production losses, ineffective maintenance, and major disasters continue to occur (Urbina, 2010; Pidgeon, 2000). Analyses of these events have indicated that a failure to consider the human factors in the design (Taylor, 2007), operation (Øien, 2001a), or maintenance (Bea, 1998) of hazardous process technologies is often an important contributor. Based on research to evaluate the influence of these human factors on organisational performance, various models (Rasmussen, 1982; Dekker 2005) and taxonomies (Reason, 1998) for analysing organisational processes at the individual-, group- and organisational-level have been developed.By using these models, the current research was designed to determine the influence of human factors on maintenance reliability in petroleum operations. Three studies were conducted in petroleum operations with the objective in the first two studies of identifying the most-frequent contributors to maintenance-related failures, and in the third study, determining if group differences between higher and lower reliability work areas could be differentiated on the basis of these human factors.In Study 1, the First Priority incident database of the target organisation was used to determine the most frequently reported human factors in maintenance-related, lost-production failures. The most-frequent factors in the incidents (N=194) were found to be Violations, Design & Maintenance, Detection, and Decision-making. These results accorded with earlier studies in the field of human factors (Hobbs & Williamson, 2003; Lawton 1998), which frequently identified human error and violations as the causes of failures. Study 2 provided a more rigorous investigation of the organisational contributors to failures through structured interviews with maintenance personnel. The results of these interviews (N=38) using the Human Factors Investigation Tool (HFIT) (Gordon, 2005) demonstrated that Assumption, Design & Maintenance, and Communication were the most frequent contributors to maintenance-related failures.Based on the predominant factors identified in Study 2, a survey of the perceptions of maintenance personnel (N=178) was conducted for Study 3. Scales measuring Problem-solving (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006) and Vigilance (Mann, Burnett, Radford, & Ford, 1997) were used to measure the processes that provoke assumptions. Design & Maintenance items from HFIT (Gordon, 2001), and scales from Wiio’s (1978 a&b) Organisational Communication Development questionnaire (OCD/2) were used to test the factors identified in Study 2. Exploratory Factor Analysis indicated that the responses to the Design & Maintenance items loaded onto a single variable, while the Communication items loaded onto two variables, which were named Job-related feedback and Information about change.The perceptions of personnel in lower and higher reliability work areas across the target organisation were compared using these scales, with reliability level ranked according to the monthly Mean Time Between Deferments of petroleum production. Significant between-group differences were found between work areas on Design & Maintenance and Problem-solving. These results suggest that better maintainability in the design of plant is predictive of higher reliability level. In addition, greater requirements for Problem-solving were associated with lower reliability level. There were no significant effects of reliability on Vigilance or either communication measure.The quantitative data was triangulated with comments in response to an open-ended question asking about factors that help or hinder maintenance activities. Respondent’s comments indicated that Communication was not significantly associated with reliability at the group-level. The reason appeared to be that Communication was an organisation-level property of the employing company. Many comments indicated that access to information was difficult, explaining the high occurrence of assumptions reported in Study 2. In addition, although maintenance personnel generally agreed in the survey that they were vigilant in decision-making, personnel in lower reliability facilities provided a higher proportion of comments indicating that the decision-making of supervisors and management had a negative impact on their work.The results of the three studies support past research demonstrating that problem-solving skills (Tucker, 2002) and the design of socio-technical facilities (Reiman, Oedewald & Rollenhagen, 2005) have an important influence on organisational performance. The findings further extend research in the field of human factors by demonstrating a significant relationship between these two factors and group-level performance. The findings also demonstrated the importance of organisational communication, but as an organisational-level dimension that might not influence group-level measures. This research has implications for organisations that operate complex, hazardous technologies and that are attempting to improve organisational processes by utilising a human factors approach

Sense of coherence and diabetes: A prospective occupational cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sense of coherence (SOC) is an individual characteristic related to a positive life orientation leading to effective coping. A weak SOC has been associated with indicators of general morbidity and mortality. However, the relationship between SOC and diabetes has not been studied in prospective design. The present study prospectively examined the relationship between a weak SOC and the incidence of diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The relationship between a weak SOC and the incidence of diabetes was investigated among 5827 Finnish male employees aged 18–65 at baseline (1986). SOC was measured by questionnaire survey at baseline. Data on prescription diabetes drugs from 1987 to 2004 were obtained from the Drug Imbursement Register held by the Social Insurance Institution.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the follow-up, 313 cases of diabetes were recorded. A weak SOC was associated with a 46% higher risk of diabetes in participants who had been =<50 years of age on entry into the study. This association was independent of age, education, marital status, psychological distress, self-rated health, smoking status, binge drinking and physical activity. No similar association was observed in older employees.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results suggest that besides focusing on well-known risk factors for diabetes, strengthening SOC in employees of =<50 years of age can also play a role in attempts to tackle increasing rates of diabetes.</p

Beyond violations : human factors in maintenance failures

Human factors are recognised as influencing the performance of workgroups in industrial operations. Surveys and interventions in high-risk industries, notably commercial aviation and power generation, have highlighted the practical implications of a focus on errors and violations in the workplace. The results have led to a marked improvement in the reliability and safety of operations in these industries. Lower risk industries such as the resource sector have been slower to develop a human factors approach to the reliability of their operations. This is partly because errors and violations may carry a lower risk, and partly because of a deep-seated focus on the technical causes of failure. As a result, less research has been done to directly link workplace factors with reliability failures. Existing literature implicates the principal human factors that may be associated with unreliable maintenance work in resource industry operations. This provides the basis for further studies designed to generate data supporting a link between specific human factors and maintenance outcomes

Identification of the human factors contributing to maintenance failures in a petroleum operation

Structured interviews (N=38) were conducted with maintainers in a petroleum company who were asked to discuss a maintenance failure with which they were familiar. The interview structure was based on the Human Factor Investigation Tool - HFIT (Gordon, 2001) which in turn was based on the Model of Human Malfunction (Rasmussen, 1982). HFIT proved to be a useful instrument for identifying the pattern of human factors that recurred most frequently in maintenance-related failures. Of the 27 human factors identified, the three most frequent were found to be Assumptions (79% of cases), Design & Maintenance (71%) and Communication (66%). Of equal interest, were the factors that were infrequently mentioned such as Procedure Violations, Supervision, and Work Quality. Copyright 2010 by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Inc. All rights reserved

Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) of organisational factors related to maintenance reliability in a petroleum production workplace

Aim: To understand the influence of organisational factors on workplace effectiveness in petroleum processing operations based on perceptions of maintenance technicians. Background: Numerous engineering measures exist for determining the effectiveness of maintenance and reliability of equipment. However, technical measures may not provide sufficient insight into the causes of poor reliability. It is therefore worth improving our understanding of both the human factors specific to this domain, as well as the factors that may influence worker effectiveness in industrial workplaces. Method: Maintenance personnel completed a survey as part of a larger study of maintenance reliability. The survey included the request: "Please write any comments you have on what helps or gets in the way of maintenance work at [target organisation]." These comments were analysed to extract sub-themes using an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology. Constructs common to these sub-themes were grouped into a smaller number of shared themes and these were used to identify super-ordinate themes. For comparison, a measure was developed to determine the reliability of the facility on which the participant worked. Results: 178 participants completed the survey and 101 (55.6%) submitted a written comment. A total of 57 distinct sub-themes were extracted from the comments, and 12 themes were identified within these sub-themes. The themes were grouped into four super-ordinate themes: 1) Communication and access to information, 2) Efficiency of current work systems, 3) Need for better workgroup support, and 4) Management impacts on the workplace. Differences were identified in the frequency of these overarching themes based on facility reliability level. Conclusion: Comments related to Efficiency of work systems were more frequent from the higher reliability facilities. These comments reflected confidence in the performance

Identification of the human factors contributing to maintenance failures in a petroleum operation

Structured interviews (N=38) were conducted with maintainers in a petroleum company who were asked to discuss a maintenance failure with which they were familiar. The interview structure was based on the Human Factor Investigation Tool - HFIT (Gordon, 2001) which in turn was based on the Model of Human Malfunction (Rasmussen, 1982). HFIT proved to be a useful instrument for identifying the pattern of human factors that recurred most frequently in maintenance-related failures. Of the 27 human factors identified, the three most frequent were found to be Assumptions (79% of cases), Design & Maintenance (71%) and Communication (66%). Of equal interest, were the factors that were infrequently mentioned such as Procedure Violations, Supervision, and Work Quality. Copyright 2010 by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Inc. All rights reserved

Workforce perceptions of human factors as indicators of plant reliability and process safety

Human factors, as perceived by the maintenance workforce, were used as the measure for comparing work areas within a petroleum company. These factors were then compared to an objective measure of reliability (Mean Time Between Failures) in order to determine which factors would be most predictive of plant reliability and process safety. Maintenance personnel were surveyed using scales based on Problem-solving, Vigilance, Design and maintenance, Job-related feedback and Information about change. Analysis of Variance was used to assess the strength of these variables in relation to Reliability Level. Significant differences were observed between different reliability levels based on workforce perceptions of problem-solving requirements and the design and maintainability of plant. Conclusions were that perceptions of human factors in the workplace can be predictive of group-level performance, and that if issues relating to design and maintainability are not addressed at the design stage, greater problem-solving abilities will be required from maintenance personnel