The Working Environment and Man-Machine Interface
Authors: Bjerkåsholmen Berit , Pagenhart Anne 
Published: October 2008

Experiences from the North Sea show that offshore personnel are subject to various work related diseases. These problems are often caused by inadequate design, and several costly modification works have been performed on existing installations to improve the working environment.

For the Troll Phase I Project working environment aspects were in focus from the early planning phase. New methods and systems for implementation of working environment requirements in the design were implemented, with good results. The use of Working Environment engineers in the design team. and close co-operation with the Operator's organisation proved to be very useful. Detailed working environment requirements were developed, and reviews and studies were performed in order to identify problem areas and to verify compliance with the requirements. Follow-up of suppliers formed an important part of the job, and follow-up activities on site were found to be of great value.

Introduction

There is a general society trend of more consciousness regarding the subject of working environment. Working Environment covers factors such as: ergonomics, manmachine interface, chemical handling, noise and vibration, illumination and indoor/outdoor climatic conditions, as well as psycho-social aspects. During recent years the subject of working environment has also been in focus in the petroleum industry. Experiences from the offshore industry show that personnel are often subject to long term health problems related to the harsh working conditions, in addition to a relatively high number of work accidents. Costly modification work is common in order to improve the working environment for the personnel. This experience has led to a more systematic approach in implementing and follow-up of working environment in the design phase of Petroleum Development Projects. This paper will initially focus on the experiences from the North Sea regarding health problems among offshore personnel. Further the methods and systems utilised for implementation and follow-up of working environment in the Troll Phase 1 Project will be described. For this project. working environment aspects have been in focus and have been given high priority since the early planning. Both the offshore Troll A platform and the Kollsnes onshore process plant will be described in this paper, as the methods and systems utilised were similar.

Health Problems and Work Accidents for Offshore

Personnel

According to Norwegian Petroleum Directorate's Annual Report 1995, (ref. I), a total of 46 1 incidents of work related diseases were reported in 1995. This results in a frequency of 3 % which is significantly higher than similar figures for other Norwegian land-based industries.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of different categories of work diseases. It can be seen that musculo-skeletal - repetitive strain injuries constitutes approximately 65 % of reported work diseases, for which heavy lift and repetitive monotonous work are reported as the main reasons. Skin disease is also common, for which most incidents are related to eczema from use of chemicals. Hearing loss contributed to 9 % of the incidents, but it is expected that the actual number is higher, (ref. I).

Data from Statoil's STATGEMINI database give similar figures related to work-related diseases registered for 8 offshore platforms