Safety information gap 'of particular concern'
Published: 07 September, 2011
AVEVA, a leader in engineering design and information management solutions, has published a report highlighting the safety information gap in industry.
‘The Health & Safety Information Gap’, undertaken by Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University (RGU), and launched at Offshore Europe 2011, concentrates on information systems within the health & safety environment.
Amongst its finding are that 40% of respondents don’t know where to search for safety information and are working on a mixture of corporate, local and external information systems.
The report is based on RGU’s research which gathered information from health & safety (H&S) managers, senior managers and engineers in the global oil & gas industry, through an online questionnaire.
Confidential, in-depth critical incident case studies were carried out in four representative businesses, interviewing key individuals able to comment authoritatively on the information aspects of dealing with incidents.
Whereas internal channels such as Intranets and team meetings did offer access, respondents found that they often searched the internet for relevant information. Half of respondents identified the need for better information systems and a quarter believe that they are not shared information within the company environment. On the whole, there was a strong demand for a shared integrated system to enable better access to all appropriate information. ‘This is consistent with our own industry experience; there is clearly an information gap’, said Steve Tongish, VP Marketing, AVEVA. ‘In response to the report, we have identified the three main areas where the greatest deficiencies can be found; fragmentation of information, failure to capture and exploit the value of standards, and poor accessibility to data.’
Professor Rita Marcella, Dean of Aberdeen Business School, RGU, said that of particular concern was that current information systems are not accessible to frontline operational staff and that these systems and health & safety messages are not designed with their needs in mind.
The report, authored by Professor Rita Marcella and Tracy Pirie of Aberdeen Business School, RGU, is available for download, along with AVEVA’s point of view document at www.aveva.com/hs-research.
