A Resilience Engineering Approach for Preventing Accidents due to Human Factors

Abstract

Human factors are emerging as the main concern for the oil and gas industry. All the major accidents in the offshore industry will have a direct cause or some way or the other linked to the human factors. The main aim of this thesis is to reduce the incidents due to human factors. In this thesis the commonly used methods Human Reliability Analysis and Barrier and Operational Risk Analysis are studied and their limitations are reviewed. A new approach Functional Resonance and Analysis Method (FRAM) is used to overcome all the limitations and manage the human factors based on the principle of Resilience engineering. FRAM is a risk assessment method used widely in the field of Aviation and air traffic management where high degree of precision and safety is required. A case study on Macondo Blowout is performed using the FRAM method to illustrate its functionality and also to explain how the accident could have been predicted and prevented from the disaster.