Event report

Working Safer Offshore
24-25 January 2002, Manchester, UK

IMCA's Safety, Environment & Legislation committee held a successful seminar in January 2002 which brought together onshore and offshore managers responsible for safety with operational personnel to discuss a diverse range of offshore safety issues.

Over eighty delegates from around the world, mostly from offshore contractors but also with client, specialist consultancy and regulatory representatives, gathered to hear a range of thought-provoking presentations and enthusiastically participated in small group discussion sessions. IMCA has been contacted by a number of delegates, all very favourably impressed with the range and depth of safety issues discussed and the manner in which they were covered, which enabled a number of important lessons learned by those involved in safety management to be shared among those present.

Programme

• Presentations:
  • Safety culture: How it differs world-wide, how to manage the difference
  • Behavioural safety: An American perspective
  • Behaviour-based accident prevention process
  • Does legislation always help improve safety? Positive and negative examples
  • Leading safety performance indicators
  • Safety incentives
  • Offshore incidents and lessons learned from them
• Small group discussion sessions:
  • Behavioural safety management
  • Leading safety performance indicators
  • Safety incentives

A printed set of proceedings, including the presentations and reports on the discussion sessions, is available to members on request.

Event Report

A total of 86 delegates attended this major IMCA seminar, taking place in the Stretford Suite at Old Trafford stadium, overlooking the Manchester United pitch, to hear a particularly impressive set of talks and take part in some lively discussions as to how culture, behaviour and legislation affects safety, how management should be aware of the influences and utilise that knowledge to improve safety management. The seminar was chaired by the committee's Chairman - Chris van Beek of Heerema Marine Contractors - and Vice-Chairman, Mike O'Meara of Halliburton KBR, who provocatively waved a Portsmouth FC scarf at the start of the second day!

Day One

The Effects of Culture

Sjaak Pappe of ITIM, a culture and management consultancy, gave a well received interactive explanation of how differing cultures react in sometimes surprisingly different ways to safety matters. It gave an insight into one's own thinking and conditioning and the ways in which understanding of a nationality's culture is essential in assessing how to effectively manage safety of personnel from all parts of the globe.

Behaviour-Based Safety Management

Mark Guest of Halliburton presented an American perspective. He emphasised the need for two-way communication between workforce and management and for a total emphasis on teaching safe behaviour, so that employees want to work safely. He told how focusing on returning home safely to family and loved ones could help bring home the human consequences of working safely, or of not doing so. Most of all, he told of the need to be passionate about safety and demonstrate a commitment to it. That commitment would itself result in support beyond expectations.

Allan Hannah of Technip-Coflexip presented a thought-provoking overview of behaviour-based accident prevention, demonstrating the horror of injury, both pictorially and by naming personnel and their individual injuries. He pointed out that, despite numerous safety initiatives, even a decreasing trend meant accidents were still happening meaning people are still getting hurt. Graphs and statistics could encourage complacency. He viewed a zero figure as attainable and to be constantly striven for. He then outlined his company's approach to identifying behaviours, collating data and, through consultation, using that data to remove the danger, exploring how such a process worked in practice and what pitfalls to watch out for in implementation.

Each of the twelve tables of delegates then entered into separate discussions on behavioural safety management. One person in each group summarised their answers and fed that back to the floor, itself resulting in further discussion.

The Effects of Legislation

Joop van de Westen of ITIM took the last session of the day, posing the question of whether legislation improved safety. He gave some positive and negative examples to illustrate his views. He asked whether it was necessary to have a culture of punishment for breaking safety rules, whether this distracted from the rule’s fundamental purpose. Also there was danger in an individual's interpretation of a rule and great care needed to be taken in presentation of a rule or warning, particularly with illustrative signs. He expressed the need to concentrate on leading people to think safely as opposed to blindly following rules.

Chris van Beek summarised the day and there was some general discussion, no doubt continued in the evening at the seminar dinner.

Day Two

Leading Performance Indicators (LPIs)

Ken London of Stolt Offshore spoke about LPIs, an ongoing area of work for IMCA, setting out the six key leading indicators of safety performance currently proposed and providing a discussion paper for delegates' consideration. He described how the leading indicators had been determined and that they were now being presented for wider consultation/feedback. The constructive feedback resulting from the later lively table discussions was welcomed and would be carefully studied.

Safety Incentive Schemes

Sal Ruffino, European Marine Contractors, then talked about the effectiveness of safety incentive schemes, or their lack of effectiveness if they are not carefully conceived. He expressed the view, which was agreed with on the floor, that despite the best of intentions, some schemes can be counter productive and their best elements, such as bringing about safety improvement, modifying behaviour and heightening awareness can be lost. That theme was noticeably reinforced by comments made in the table discussions which followed.

Learning from Offshore Incidents

The remainder of the second day was devoted to the topic of offshore incidents and lessons learned from them. The session took the form of four presentations, including case study video footage, on a variety of offshore incidents, with discussion on the ways in which lessons had been learned from them. IMCA gratefully acknowledges the major contribution of the presenters both to the seminar itself, provoking fascinating and very constructive debate, and into the wider work programme of IMCA's SEL committee.

A highlight was Stephen Bruce's candid account of his previous experience in the North Sea fishing industry and its totally different approach to safety. He used video of an actual rescue to emphasise the dangers involved. His telling point, at the close of his talk, was that companies could easily be employing people brought up in such cultures or similar in many areas of the world.

There was general discussion on the floor as to what could be learned from the incidents, whether there were any common themes and as to how this could be used to make offshore work sites safer.

The Way Forward

Chris van Beek and Mike O'Meara then brought the seminar to a close with general discussion. The talks and video presentations had been very well received, inspiring a great deal of thought and discussion. There was a striking commonality in conclusions of speakers who had viewed the subject from a range of perspectives.

The close-out discussion showed that there was a strongly felt need to take safety initiatives forward, to look at the ordinary routine issues as well as the extraordinary. Many would now consider culture issues differently as a result of the discussions. Some might think more about managing change; encouraging better communication between managers and workforce; there was still a need for training and familiarisation and contingency plans for when things go wrong. It was thought that companies should actively demonstrate support for those who query safety issues no matter when or from what level. Safety flashes and company safety notices should be followed up and not discarded as irrelevant purely because they might be old. There should be more sharing of information and a willingness to disseminate and learn from incidents. It was also hoped that any future session would involve more personnel from the offshore workforce. A forest of hands on the floor showed agreement that the event had been very worthwhile and that a repeat follow up event should be arranged for next year.

The seminar closed, lunch followed, then a well attended and much appreciated full tour of the Old Trafford Stadium.