Leveraging the Technologies and Capabilities of Dynamic Risk Management to Transform Operational Safety and Performance Excellence
Forrester has found that organizations within the heavy industry sector are increasingly turning to digital solutions to resolve challenges around productivity, operational efficiency and asset availability. The oil and gas industry is not a stranger to this and cannot stay behind. The research firm defines this drive toward digital operational excellence (DOX) as both strategic and transformative. It allows companies to fully realize their potential and overcome traditionally complex operational issues for long-term measurable value.
This can be achieved by using some of the truly innovative technological capabilities that have emerged over the past few years. Technologies that allow oil and gas organizations to fully access and analyze their data and derive insights, and use them to create cohesive ecosystems that can adapt and evolve alongside changing markets and business requirements. The data-based analysis and insights are crucial to keep up with rapid changes that allow for sustainable improvements in operational capability and risk management, and are a long-term investment into culture, solutions and insights.
Connecting People
One of the strongest elements of operational excellence is the connected worker. According to Verdantix, it’s become increasingly relevant over the past few years as it allows oil and gas organizations to empower workers to achieve more within tighter restrictions, without compromising on security or productivity. The survey also found that 79 percent of respondents felt that the connected worker solution was a significant driver of operational excellence.
The connected worker provides the organization with a comprehensive digital view of all facility activities. These can be accessed by workers and decision-makers to improve processes and personnel safety. The solution uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and real time information that promotes safe behavior and improves engagement. The connected worker platform also plays a significant role in risk mitigation when partnered with dynamic risk management.
The platform can revolutionize occupational safety in the oil and gas industry while allowing organizations to leverage data to improve operations and translate insights into value. It also contributes significantly toward data-driven decision making.
The Heart of Strategy
Putting the connected worker at the heart of the organization’s digital strategy is a differentiator. It drives innovation and growth. It allows the organization to establish an agile and adaptable workforce at a time when markets are volatile and circumstances uncertain. It empowers and enables people to do more within safe environments. It’s a powerful ally for organizations looking to refine operational capabilities and completely redefine their risk conversations because it has access to relevant data and to insights that allow for data-driven decision making.
Data-driven decision making allows for the organization to tap into a bouquet of services and solutions that can change its risk profile and operational success story. These include:
- Dynamic risk management
- Real-time alerts and insights
- Data-driven insights and analytics capabilities
- A centralized system with coherent access to all real-time information
- The connected worker and motivated engagements
- Efficient E-Shift management
- Autonomous system management with proactive and predictive capabilities
- AI, IoT and ML capabilities
- These tools help organizations refine their approaches and embed operational excellence into every action, system and touchpoint.
Dynamic Risk Management Unpacked
Dynamic risk management should be an integral part of the organization. It plays both a strategic and functional role, informed by data, powered by insights, and fueled by digital systems. It runs from the connected worker through the Internet of Things (IoT), industrial IoT (IIoT), sensors, shift management systems and analytics, building a comprehensive picture of the organization’s risk profile. As it aggregates all the safety and operations activities, dynamic risk management allows for the organization to create an autonomous and intelligent dashboard that ensures the right people have the right information at the right time.
The AI-assisted platform connects humans, machines and systems in real time and assists in driving the optimization of factory and field performance with relevant information and insights. It’s a radical reimagining of operations that is far more effective and intelligent, dynamically managing work activities and risk at speed, within the right operational frameworks.
There are other benefits to dynamic risk management in the oil and gas industry, ones that allow for organizations to refine procedures and processes and establish a more proactive stance throughout. These include:
a. Allowing standardization of the work processes across business units, plants and regions.
b. Strategic, real-time reporting, which reveals crucial information that allows decision makers to identify pain points and drive improvements in company asset and safety management.
c. Personalized and visualized business reports and insights customized for every role in the company.
d. A risk model that includes data about the worker, location, time of day, weather, tools and materials. It proactively prevents events that threaten workers’ lives or create production failures and can deliver a personalized safety routine that guides the performance of people, tasks and assets.
e. A permit to work (E-PTW) digital tool that’s highly agile and adaptable to ensure worker safety and measurable risk reductions in hazardous or non-standard working conditions.
f. Connections to siloed data that detect risks to asset reliability and availability.
g. Risk-based inspections based on exceptions and deviations that may lead to measurable loss/profit opportunities.
h. Deploying dynamic operator rounds based on asset health and safety performance data including anomalies and corrective actions can fundamentally change the risk profile.
The Excellence of GOARC
The GOARC Safety 4.0 platform is an innovative industrial safety solution that blends digital, innovation and intelligence into a coherent solution that delivers measurable results. Offering real-time, multi-level predictive and preventative data and insights, this SaaS solution leverages predictive analytics for behavior-based safety within dynamic safety routines.
A real connected worker platform, which puts the human in the center and integrates with process sensors, IoTs, ERP systems and other work management systems to bring relevant data to the forefront for the operations to manage their quality, asset availability and asset performance at optimal levels. Find more about the connected worker solution here.
Headline photo courtesy of iStock.
Mahesh Dabbada is an experienced industry expert in developing and implementing strategies for Industry 4.0 and advanced manufacturing technologies within energy, oil and gas, and petrochemical sectors. The primary focus is the adoption of Industry 4.0 concepts of interconnectivity, flexible automation, machine learning and real-time data to create a more data-driven ecosystem that can rapidly respond to challenges throughout the entire value stream.
Oil and gas operations are commonly found in remote locations far from company headquarters. Now, it's possible to monitor pump operations, collate and analyze seismic data, and track employees around the world from almost anywhere. Whether employees are in the office or in the field, the internet and related applications enable a greater multidirectional flow of information – and control – than ever before.
