Comment

Learning from oil and gas to manage the safety-productivity challenge

Safety versus productivity is a constant challenge for the rail industry. But the oil and gas industry has found that these can be complementary rather than contradictory forces, writes Iain Mackay of Petrotechnics.

More rail passenger journeys are undertaken now than at any point in history. Passenger density is greater than at any point too. The amount of freight carried by train is growing steadily all the time.

But the assets on which journeys are made are ageing; there are still oil lamps and Victorian signal boxes on remote parts of the network. While these are being replaced and earlier under-investment is rectified, modern infrastructure requires regular maintenance. As assets are used more heavily and demands placed on them increase, the rate of wear and tear accelerates.

The rail industry therefore finds itself in something of a vicious circle: as rail use goes up, so do maintenance requirements. Available capacity is temporarily restricted, adding pressures to an already stretched network. The demand for rapid repairs becomes ever-greater, while the window in which to perform them gets smaller.

There is a constant battle between speed and safety – the ‘safety/productivity dynamic’. The managers responsible for infrastructure availability and possession planning are not necessarily the same people appointed to manage the safe delivery of work. The inevitable consequence is that operational decision-making, and overall productivity, can be compromised.

However, ‘safety versus productivity’ is an ever-present conundrum in hazardous industries where heavy machinery, extreme temperatures and explosive substances meet humanity. Failures are often high profile and have a high cost.

The oil and gas industry is one example. It is extremely hazardous to operate with poorly maintained assets, but the downtime needed for repairs can nonetheless be costly. There is pressure to be productive, balanced by an equal pressure to keep people safe.

Of course, there are important differences. In international oil companies, it is an accepted fact that this is an intrinsically hazardous environment and therefore the health, safety and environmental factors that come with it are widely understood and respected.

By contrast, when we look at rail, understanding of risk is less complete. The ever-present threat posed by a train coming down the track at 60mph is clear. But the deadly silence of a third rail, or less obvious threats posed by lopping branches from trackside trees are more troubling.

The other important difference is that an offshore oil platform, for example, is a highly controlled environment – no-one is there who shouldn’t be. However, railways are in public spaces, introducing more variables into the mix. Oil industry accidents are rarer but can be catastrophic. Safety failures on railways tend to be smaller, but more frequent. As Mark Carne, chief executive of Network Rail, pointed out, a worker is 10 times more likely to be killed in the rail industry than in the oil and gas sector.

So what can rail learn from the oil and gas industry? Both sectors are highly regulated. Both see risk arise at the intersection of infrastructure, policies and people. Both tend to have large rule books with a detailed history of every incident or issue. As a potential problem becomes apparent, or an accident occurs, mitigating procedures are developed and remedial responses added.

However, what players in the oil and gas industry have understood for some time, and rail operators are coming to recognise, is that these incredibly detailed safety procedures may actually contribute to the problem and not the solution.

Firstly, the more complex the rule book, the more likely there is to be non-compliance. A rig or a railway is rather like a huge machine, in which every asset, worker and job is a carefully calibrated cog. Adding a fix to an individual asset or a new procedure for a specific work crew will, over time, cause those cogs to slip. Fixing something here could create a new problem over there – until eventually everything grinds to a halt.

Secondly, rule books often don’t survive interaction with high-stress work environments. Take late-night, trackside maintenance with a diverse crew. When caught between an unwieldy set of procedures, time pressures, and colleagues who want to get home to their families, any number of possible mistakes can occur.

The challenge is to create processes that deliver coherent and consistent practice across a diverse range of assets, people, tasks, locations, and supply chains.

The oil and gas approach has resulted in more manageable procedures that take into account the interrelated nature of the hazards, risks, and future plans. By adopting this risk-centric approach, progressive rail companies can take a step back and consider how work can be planned and delivered, both safely and productively. It’s all about getting the right procedures, empowering the right people, and seeing safety as an inherent enabler of productivity.