Automation of Drilling Processes in the Petroleum Industry: Consequences for Occupational Health and Safety, 2011

Technological innovations and increased automation are necessary in order to realize the remaining value on the Norwegian continental shelf. The trend towards deepwater and subsea operations, and more challenging wells, requires new technologies and work processes. New technology renders possible real-time advisory systems for the driller, and also automated operations safeguarding against human errors. At the same time, automating drilling processes may produce several challenges for occupational health, safety and environment (HSE) offshore.

In this research proposal we focus on these challenges and how they may occur and how we can solve them in a best possible way. Automation can be defined as the full or partial replacement of a function previously carried out by the human operator. There is an extensive amount of research on automation consequences in several industries, which has found that automation can have both beneficial and negative effects on human performance. However, we find a lack of research on HSE issues regarding automation in the petroleum industry. An emphasis on human-automation interaction when considering aspects of occupational health and safety of automation of drilling processes in the petroleum industry is thus necessary as automation changes operator functional requirements, and consequently often imposes new coordination and monitoring demands of the operator of the technology. Based on this acknowledgement, the main objective of this project is to throw light on the interaction between human operators and automation systems in drilling operations. Hence, occupational health and safety? We aim at applying both explorative and experimental methodological approaches in answering this research question.