The process industries include a variety of complex workplaces from refineries, power stations and water treatment works to manufacturing plants and mines and quarries. In particular, the oil, gas and chemicals industries include a wide range of sectors and work activities, including oil refineries, chemical processing plants, and offshore installations. These industries come under the banner of ‘major hazards’, which also includes the nuclear industry.
The offshore industry discovers reservoirs containing oil and gas (hydrocarbons), drills holes into these, then extracts and processes the hydrocarbons before sending these products ashore by tankers or pipelines. It’s often a hostile environment – installations in the North Sea have to be designed to withstand wind gusts of 180 km/hour and waves 30 metres high. Helicopter fleets ferry workers to and from the platforms and rigs, where they generally work 12-hour shifts for 2-3 weeks before returning home for a break of 2-3 weeks. Around 20,000 people are employed in the offshore industry.
The refining industry turns thick, black crude oil into valuable products like petrol, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, lubricating oil and bitumen. Refining also creates petrochemicals which are the basis for plastics, paints, adhesives, detergents, resins, solvents, synthetic fibres and rubber. There are currently 8 refineries in the UK, all based around the coast for ease of importing crude oil by tankers.
The chemical industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the UK, with a turnover of £55 billion; directly employing 214,000 people. It converts animal, vegetable and mineral raw materials (including products from refineries) into a host of products for use by both industrial and household consumers. Over 3000 chemical companies in the UK produce a huge range of products, such as dyes, paints, explosives, adhesives, flavours, fragrances, photographic chemicals, fertilisers, plastics, pesticides, detergents, pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics and plating chemicals for the electronics industry.
The gas industry receives gas from offshore installations (via pipelines) at seven beach terminals, where it is treated and then transported through the National Transmission System via local distribution networks to around 40 power stations, a small number of large industrial consumers and millions of domestic consumers.
One of the main differences between these ‘major hazard’ sites and say, a general manufacturing site, is that there is a potential of ‘offsite’ consequences from a major hazards site. For example, large fires, explosions or the release of toxic chemicals can harm people living nearby the site, in addition to those working on the site. So, there is a potential that many people, both workers and members of the public, may be injured or even killed in a major accident. There is therefore a need to manage health and safety risks very carefully.
Ergonomists and human factors specialists are employed directly by these companies, or more often indirectly as consultants. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) regulates these industries, and also employs specialists in these areas who inspect the companies, investigate incidents, and assess safety reports and safety cases.
Ergonomics and human factors have a large role to play in ensuring the health and safety of personnel working on, or living nearby, these major hazard installations. Whether it’s an oil platform in the North Sea, a refinery, or a chemical plant, there are a number of common key issues for industry to consider.
Most of these installations will have at least one control room. Control rooms are a good place to start looking for ergonomics and human factors issues. A small team of personnel and a supervisor will co-ordinate activities using a bank of computer screens, CCTV, telephones, radios and large mimics of the process on the wall.
Issues to consider would include the health and safety of these control room personnel (see the section on office work as the issues are very similar). However, as these are major hazard sites, we’re also concerned with how well these personnel are controlling the operations, as something going wrong has the potential to affect hundreds or thousands of people. They may be monitoring and controlling temperatures, pressures, remotely operating valves to manage the flow of products, talking to ‘outside’ operators, and reacting to alarms. In the event of an emergency, such as the release of oil, gas or toxic chemicals, they will play a key role.
So, do these personnel know what to do, in emergencies as well as in routine operations? Do they have access to the right information to help them make the right decisions in a timely manner? Can they navigate around the computer control system to find the information that they need? What’s their workload like? Too much or too little are both concerns. How do they communicate with the outside operators? Is there any scope for confusion or miscommunications? What is their working pattern? Could they become fatigued due to shift patterns, affecting their performance? Are the procedures clear and correct, especially the emergency procedures?
Outside the control room, there will be a range of personnel, some of them physically operating equipment, such as turning manual valves, connecting drill pipes together, loading chemicals into large reaction vessels, or operating cranes or fork lift trucks. Other personnel will be maintaining equipment such as pumps – either in-situ, or taking it out of service to work on it elsewhere. These personnel will need to be trained, assessed, supervised and have clear roles and responsibilities. They will need procedures that are suitable for working outside, sometimes in harsh environments. The equipment that they operate should be labelled clearly, to help prevent maloperation.
There needs to be good communications between operations and maintenance personnel, so each team knows what the other is doing and when, especially at the end and start of shifts.
Besides the above, organisational or management issues need to be considered. For example, how are potential conflicts and pressures managed? Many companies are downsizing or merging; how are changes to the organisation managed, such as multi-skilling or the removal of a layer of supervision? It’s common to find large numbers of contractors in these industries. How is their training managed and who has oversight of their work?
This article has only touched upon some of the issues. Clearly, the process industries are rich with ergonomics and human factors issues.
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