Experience with complex technical and organizational changes in the offshore petroleum industry

摘要

In this paper we focus on the experience of the Norwegian oil and gas industry concerning complex technical and organizational changes, especially those related to remote operation and de-manning. These technical and organizational changes are closely related. Organizational changes will in many cases be carried out as a consequence of technical changes and vice versa. Thus the need for organizational changes, such as reduced manning, may be the direct cause of an investment in technical changes. Remote operation is in most eases technically feasible, and the main challenge is considered to be "organizational" by nature. One reason is that changes to existing installations will have impacts on the work organization, and very often result in de-manning. This is obviously not the case for purpose-built installations. We make some recommendations about how to handle the organizational and social factors that are important for safety and/or important for the implementation of the change process itself. Based on this experience we consider developing a new methodology for the analysis of the safety consequences of complex changes.