Spotlight on zero-incident framework at HSE Oman Forum 2021

The session also featured an interactive panel with subject matter experts at Petroleum Development Oman, IOSH Oman, Yokogawa RAP and Al Tasnim Group at 10:30 AM GST today.

Mark Breese, global sales manager, Yokogawa RAP, has highlighted a fresh intuitive gateway to safer workforce culture. Speaking on the Industry 5.0, he cited a quote from European Commission: “The next step (Industry 5.0) is to place the wellbeing worker at the centre of the production process and to use new technologies to provide prosperity beyond jobs and growth while respecting the production limits of the planet.”

In line with this, Breese discussed the reasons for industrial fatalities. According to him, 60% of accidents happen due to a lack of inadequate control in work as poor understanding of risks are involved is the primary factor. He cited the main cause causes of accidents in Oman. In Oman, 34% of workplace injuries are from vehicle accidents. As per the statistics provided by the Public Authority of Social Insurance (PASI), as many as 158 cases of the 454 workplace-related injuries in 2018 were due to vehicle-related accidents. Additionally, 26% of accidents are caused due to slips, trips and falls, and 27% of accidents are caused due to debris, high falls, moving equipment and sharps.

To tackle this, Breese highlighted the key pillars of control of work. He said that three core functions make up the control of work: plant assets and process, plant system and technology, and safe working practices. All these three pillars should be equally represented and linked together to make a proper balance among risk assessment, isolation management and permit to work.

He also stressed that digitalisation and digital solutions are the easiest way to achieve this. Digital solutions such as RAP provide proven intelligent safety at the forefront of digital control of work in high hazard industries. Technological advancements drive cultural safety gains. With improved safety, comes efficient working, routine compliance and learning of applications, which effectively lead to the identification of work conflicts, reduced application time and automated distribution to all relevant stuff, thus ultimately improving faster workplace culture.

Nadhira Al Hinai, general manager Al Tasnim Group, stressed on the importance of training to employees on HSE elements. According to her, if the operator wants to improve the element of HSE in the organisation, training is a must for the employees as it gives more hands on knowledge and expertise on HSE for their own safety and others. Whereas teaching is more abstract and theoretical, hands-on training on HSE elements give real-time knowledge on HSE components to the employees. Hands-on training aims to develop abilities through practice with instruction or supervision.

Nadhira further highlighted the role of effective communications to ensure a robust HSE management system. She spoke about the seven Cs of Communications which include: Clear, Concise, Concrete, Correct, Coherent, Complete and Courteous. These are really crucial for effective training and teaching for the individuals to contribute to the zero-incident culture.

Neelesh Sogani, chairman, IOSH Oman, highlighted the importance to have a budget for HSE. According to him, “We need to start investing in HSE. When we talk about investing in HSE, have you seen any organisation who is budgeting for the incidents? If you don’t budget for the incident, and if any incident happens in your organisation, ultimately it is going to impact your annual budget and profitability. Normally, the approach of the management in most of organisations is that the HSE is the cost centre."

In reality, HSE is not the overhead to the company, Sogani explained. The management needs to asset assess if the HSE is really a cost centre or a profit centre. If any incident happens, the cost to the company is huge. If a single incident can be prevented in the organisation, it increases the downtime, and thus increases the profitability.

Speaking on sustainable positive culture in any organisation in a Q&A session, Jose Petrizzo, senior industrial hygienist, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), explained that regarding the personal health and safety management system, the individual organisational health and safety measures, deprivation of risk and the implementation and management system are the key. A proper management system can lead to opportunities for growth, decreasing the level of accidents, ultimately increasing the Return of Investment (ROI) and productivity while mitigating the risks.

Suriya Narayanan, consultant – business development manager, Yokogawa Middle East & Africa RAP – control of work solutions, explained this too. According to him, it is important to take the right managerial decisions and also take appropriate actions at an appropriate time to ensure safety. The operator needs to understand the plant’s capability and based on that, the operator needs to understand and assess the stakeholders’ expectation. The operator needs to have balance in doing that with a proper business case to meet those expectations.

Speaking on attaining zero-incident occurrence, Petrizzo said that it is important to analyse why systems fail. That is a sequence of events. The operators have to analyse the trends and threats. If you have a management system in place, no matter what happens, you have a late recovery measure in order to stop the disaster. The operator may not avoid errors but should be able to reduce the incidents by analysing the trends and the consequence of these incidents.

For further information see https://www.hse-forum.com/oman-2021