Overview
This page provides an opportunity to brainstorm what contributes towards a positive culture, and then to assess a scenario to identify if poor culture contributed to the accident.
Task
Task A – Positive Safety Culture – Factors
Use the Padlet below to brainstorm a list of factors that you think contribute to a positive “Safety Culture”.
Task B Scenario – Cultural Influences
As part of the safety culture workshop, we have developed the scenario below for your teams to review and discuss, with the aim of identifying the possible root causes and how the safety culture of the organisation contributed to the accident.
Scenario
During the night shift, an Urgent Operational Requirement has been received by the Head Office to minimise the time to load a tanker due to a severe weather front coming in. The young shift operator on duty, who was new to the platform after working for 6 months on a large on-shore installation, was put in charge of the transfer to give the night shift a rest after an incident earlier in the day. Using his experience he sets the pump speed to 8000m3/hr, which exceeds the Original Equipment Manufacturer system specification by over 300%, and fully opened all the valves including the by-pass valves.
Unware of the procedure, he makes the following announcement over the Tannoy at 11pm:
“We are… er… pumping to the tanker because of a big storm… please …er… don’t change anything”.
An oilrig worker manages to get 20 minutes of sleep between back-to-back shifts, and wakes up at 11:15pm to conduct routine maintenance of the discharge valve assembly. Although he is 12 hours behind his schedule, due the earlier incident, he starts to cycle the operating mechanism of the valves as part of his maintenance routine. During this process, he notices the by-pass valves are fully open and snaps them shut. The instantaneous increase in pressure is not released by the inline pressure relief valve, which has been isolated for over 6 months due to a leaking gasket, and the system pipe coupling explodes Catastrophically, knocking another operator overboard.
A maintainer working on a lower level, below the inline pressure relief value, has taken some well deserved rest after a long shift. They decide to have a cigarette whilst their supervisor is busy preparing for the arrival of the tanker. The gas from the pipe rupture, is ignited by the cigarette resulting in an explosion that injuries the maintainer working on the pressure relief valve.
Review the Safety Culture scenario above, and capture in the second column of the Padlet the possible root causes and how the safety culture of the organisation contributed to the accident. You may wish to use the graphic below to assist in this workshop
