Obtaining Maximum Value from HSE Management Systems
Authors: Bennett Allan , Keith Ian , Jamieson Ian 
Published: December 2007

The use of HSE Management Systems is becoming universal in the oil and gas industry both with production companies and contractors. It provides a structure, which enables a company to ensure documentation and demonstrable activities cover all elements of a quality management system.

At Woodside the senior management level are sending out all the right messages. Safety is given the highest priority in decision making, health is firmly on the agenda and projects that don't comply with company environmental expectations are being knocked back. However recent incidents in our country and the continuation of lost time injury frequencies around 2 per million hoursworked suggests that we have not yet realised the full value of these systems. There is a need to look more closely at the human factors that decide whether a system succeeds or fails. We believe that ultimate success of our HSEManagement System will be achieved by developing and maintaining the right attitude in the people using it.

This paper presents how we went about changing behaviors to get the right attitudes and the results. The three main strategies are the:*Personalising of the HSE-MS through annual HSE Plans*Review of incidents as a failure in the HSE-MS*Demonstrate due diligence to HSE responsibilities by individuals, workgroups and divisions

The processes and the results achieved are discussed, for each in turn.

This approach has seen individuals focus on what they need to do (rather than what they think they should) which in turn has resulted in better value for the HSE dollar spent. The adoption of similar approaches to management in other areas of the business are taken as endorsement of the process.

Introduction

We have seen great strides made in the Management of HSE in the past decade. Following from the Piper Alpha disaster we saw the introduction of the SafetyCase for operating facilities, which has helped to formalise the use of a systematic approach to HSE management. When prepared well a HSE ManagementSystem, HSE-MS, document provides a detailed road map of HSE procedures and practices.

Following the initial fanfare associated with the introduction of Safety Cases a number of major incidents that have occurred around the world in companies employing such systems indicate that while there is usually good documentation in place the people do not always apply the processes. There is also some evidence that the main HSE indicators, such as Lost Time Injuries, have flattened out and that we now need to find some new initiatives to go the nextstep.

At Woodside we are committed to having a demonstrable systematic approach to all business processes not just HSE. To ensure we get the best results for the effort we have tried to capture the behaviors and attitudes of those who achieve the high performance. This was done by analysing the different workgroups within the company who continuously performed well in output indicators such as injury and incident rates and those that were able to demonstrate implementation of all their work processes including HSE. We also used perception surveys to gauge the attitudes of the workgroups to see if they aligned with the other indicators. The aim is to replicate the characteristics and behaviors of the good performers across the whole organisation and to put in place measures to ensure that they are sustainable.