Najmedin Meshkati

Technology transfer to developing countries: A tripartite micro- and macroergonomic analysis of human-organization-technology interfaces

Abstract Technology transfer, its role in the economic development of developing countries, and factors affecting its success is studied. Numerous studies of appropriate technology indirectly and implicitly indicate that micro- and macroergonomic considerations play instrumental roles in the success of technology transfer projects. Major micro- and macroergonomic considerations of technology transfer are discussed, and it is concluded that only through a proactive and systematic incorporation of these considerations can one ensure the appropriateness, safety, and effective utilization of the transferred technology.

Safety and Human Factors Considerations in Control Rooms of Oil and Gas Pipeline Systems: Conceptual Issues and Practical Observations

All oil and gas pipeline systems are run by human operators (called controllers) who use computer-basedworkstations in control rooms to “control” pipelines. Several human factor elements could contribute to thelack of controller success in preventing or mitigating pipeline accidents/incidents. These elements exist in boththe work environment and also in the computer system design/operation (such as data presentation and alarmconfiguration). Some work environment examples include shift hours, shift length, circadian rhythms, shiftchange-over processes, fatigue countermeasures, ergonomics factors, workplace distractions, and physicalinteraction with control system computers. The major objective of this paper is to demonstrate the critical effectsof human and organizational factors and also to highlight the role of their interactions with automation (andautomated devices) in the safe operation of complex, large-scale pipeline systems. A case study to demonstratethe critical role of human organizational factors in the control room of an oil and gas pipeline system is alsopresented.

Applying the AcciMap methodology to investigate the tragic Sewol Ferry accident in South Korea

This study applies the AcciMap methodology, which was originally proposed by Professor Jens Rasmussen (1997), to the analysis of the tragic Sewol Ferry accident in South Korea on April 16, 2014, which killed 304 mostly young people and is considered as a national disaster in that country. This graphical representation, by incorporating associated socio-technical factors into an integrated framework, provides a big-picture to illustrate the context in which an accident occurred as well as the interactions between different levels of the studied system that resulted in that event. In general, analysis of past accidents within the stated framework can define the patterns of hazards within an industrial sector. Such analysis can lead to the definition of preconditions for safe operations, which is a main focus of proactive risk management systems. In the case of the Sewol Ferry accident, a lot of the blame has been placed on the Sewols captain and its crewmembers. However, according to this study, which relied on analyzing all available sources published in English and Korean, the disaster is the result of a series of lapses and disregards for safety across different levels of government and regulatory bodies, Chonghaejin Company, and the Sewols crewmembers. The primary layers of the AcciMap framework, which include the political environment and non-proactive governmental body; inadequate regulations and their lax oversight and enforcement; poor safety culture; inconsideration of human factors issues; and lack of and/or outdated standard operating and emergency procedures were not only limited to the maritime industry in South Korea, and the Sewol Ferry accident, but they could also subject any safety-sensitive industry anywhere in the world.

An etiological investigation of micro- and macroergonomic factors in the bhopal disaster: Lessons for industries of both industrialized and developing countries

The catastrophic accident at the Union Carbide Corporations pesticide plant in Bhopal, India (1984) is investigated and its micro- and macroergonomic causes are identified. It is demonstrated that this accident was not prototypical, and there were numerous similarities with respect to the of lack of human factors considerations between the Bhopal plant and other industrial facilities which have had major accidents, including the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (1979). This analysis can, by extrapolation, be applied as well to many other comparable plants around the world which because of sheer luck and/or coincidence, fortunately, have not had a major accident, yet. It is concluded that only through a proactive, systematic, and integrated micro- and macroergonomically-based policy can one control the safety and ensure the efficiency of the operations of industrial plants and facilities, both in industrialized and developing countries.

Learning from the BP Deepwater Horizon accident: risk analysis of human and organizational factors in negative pressure test

According to several seminal investigation reports on the BP Deepwater Horizon (DWH) accident, misinterpretation of a critical test, called negative pressure test (NPT), was a major contributing cause of that disaster. NPT, according to many credible references, is the primary step to ascertain well integrity during any offshore drilling. This paper introduces a three-layer, conceptual risk analysis framework to assess the critical role of human and organizational factors in conducting and interpreting a negative pressure test. This framework has been developed by generalizing the risk assessment model that was proposed by the authors for the analysis of the conducted NPT by the DWH crew. In addition, the application of the introduced framework in this study is not limited to NPT misinterpretation. In fact, it can be generalized and be potentially useful for the risk analysis of future oil and gas drilling as well as other high-risk operations. Analysis of the developed framework in this paper confirms the results of previous studies by indicating that organizational factors are root causes of accumulated errors and questionable decisions made by personnel or management. Further analysis of this framework identifies procedural issues, economic pressure, and personnel management issues as the organizational factors with the highest influence on misinterpreting a negative pressure test. It is noteworthy that the captured organizational factors in the introduced conceptual framework are not only specific to the scope of the NPT. The three aforementioned organizational factors have been identified as common contributing causes of other offshore drilling accidents as well.

People-Technology-Ecosystem Integration: A Framework to Ensure Regional Interoperability for Safety, Sustainability, and Resilience of Interdependent Energy, Water, and Seafood Sources in the (Persian) Gulf.

Objective: The aim of this study is to identify the interdependencies of human and organizational subsystems of multiple complex, safety-sensitive technological systems and their interoperability in the context of sustainability and resilience of an ecosystem. Background: Recent technological disasters with severe environmental impact are attributed to human factors and safety culture causes. One of the most populous and environmentally sensitive regions in the world, the (Persian) Gulf, is on the confluence of an exponentially growing number of two industries—nuclear power and seawater desalination plants—that is changing its land- and seascape. Method: Building upon Rasmussen’s model, a macrosystem integrative framework, based on the broader context of human factors, is developed, which can be considered in this context as a “meta-ergonomics” paradigm, for the analysis of interactions, design of interoperability, and integration of decisions of major actors whose actions can affect safety and sustainability of the focused industries during routine and nonroutine (emergency) operations. Conclusion: Based on the emerging realities in the Gulf region, it is concluded that without such systematic approach toward addressing the interdependencies of water and energy sources, sustainability will be only a short-lived dream and prosperity will be a disappearing mirage for millions of people in the region. Application: This multilayered framework for the integration of people, technology, and ecosystem—which has been applied to the (Persian) Gulf—offers a viable and vital approach to the design and operation of large-scale complex systems wherever the nexus of water, energy, and food sources are concerned, such as the Black Sea.

Operators' Improvisation in Complex Technological Systems: Successfully Tackling Ambiguity, Enhancing Resiliency and the Last Resort to Averting Disaster

Complex safety‐critical technological systems breakdowns, which are often characterized as ‘low probability, high consequence’, could pose serious threats for workers, the local public, and possibly neighboring regions and the whole country. System designers can neither anticipate all possible scenarios nor foresee all aspects of unfolding emergency. Front‐line operators’ improvisation via dynamic problem solving and reconfiguration of available recourses provide the last resort for preventing a total system failure. Despite advances in automation, operators should remain in charge of controlling and monitoring of safety‐critical systems. Furthermore, at the time of a major emergency, operators will always constitute the societys both the first and last layer of defense; and it is eventually their improvisation and ingenuity that could save the day.

Rising Temperatures, Rising Risks: The Food-Energy-Water Nexus in the Persian Gulf

T shared Arabian/Persian Gulf (“the Gulf”) is a lifeline for the eight countries (Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq) that surround it, supporting a significant fraction of their critical resource needs. This region, one of the driest in the world, receives only 20 cm per year of average rainfall. Prolonged drought and population growth (30% between 2000 and 2020) has increased the surrounding countries’ dependency on the Gulf for water, energy and food security. Here, we discuss the tensions presented by these trends, as the success or collapse of this region is an important case study in the global management of the water-energy-food nexus. Desalination along the Gulf has exploded in recent decades in efforts to secure reliable water supplies, representing 45% of the world’s desalination capacity. In 2010, the fraction of drinking water sourced from desalination of Gulf water were Qatar, 99%; United Arab Emirates, 95%; Kuwait, 95%; Bahrain, over 80%; Oman, 80%. Although surrounding countries are trying to address this issue by building underground water storage reservoirs, most countries only have enough storage supply to last 2−3 days in an emergency. The Gulf also supports irrigation water and the seafood industry, with some of the highest seafood consumption per capita rates in the world (i.e., 28.6 kg/year in UAE and Oman, compared to 6.8 kg/yr in the U.S.). The Gulf is also an important economic hub for oil and gas production. In 2016, over 800 offshore platforms were located in the Gulf and more than 50 000 tankers traveled through. It is unclear how much oil spills into the Gulf as many spills go undocumented, including incidents of illegal discharge of oil by moving vessels, spills from production facilities, and natural seepage. The largest oil spill in history is believed to have occurred during the 1991 Gulf War when oil from several tankers was dumped into the sea deliberately, releasing an estimated 3−11 million barrels of oil; the counterclockwise current resulted in the deposition of a forty-mile long oil slick along the coasts of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The region is currently expanding its nuclear power industry significantly. To date, there is only one operational nuclear power plant on the Gulf (in Iran) but five more are under construction, and this number is likely to increase to over 20 plants by 2030. Unlike other thermal power plants, nuclear facilities continue to produce heat when turned off, making access to large volumes of sufficiently cool water critical to power plant safety. Even under today’s climatic conditions where the Gulf commonly reaches temperatures of 35 °C, nuclear reactors located on the Gulf require special condensers to operate safely with water temperatures up to 38.5 °C. Warming in the Gulf “is likely to severely impact human habitability in the future” without significant global greenhouse gas mitigation. Expected increase in water and air temperature heightens concerns regarding power plant safety, as insufficient cooling water temperatures have caused reactors to be temporarily pulled offline. During the 2003 European heat wave, for example, 30 nuclear power plants had to curtail production. The Gulf topography also provides challenges. Roughly 615 miles long with depths of 164 feet, it has only one narrow 35mile-wide opening (Hormuz Strait), connecting it to the Gulf of Oman. Consequently, pollution and salinity tend to become concentrated within the Gulf, given mitigated access to larger bodies of water, similar to the Mediterranean. Brine discharge from desalination and evaporation have therefore contributed to the salinification of the Gulf, which now has a total dissolved solids content of 45 g/L, significantly higher than average seawater (35 g/L). The activities described above (Figure 1) are inherently interdependent on each other, posing potential risks to water, energy, and food security including:

A Risk Analysis Study to Systematically Address the Critical Role of Human and Organizational Factors in Negative Pressure Test for the Offshore Drilling Industry: Policy Recommendations for HSE Specialists

According to the Presidential National Commission report on the BP Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout, there is need to “integrate more sophisticated risk assessment and risk management practices” in the oil industry. Reviewing the literature of the offshore drilling industry indicates that most of the developed risk analysis methodologies do not fully and more importantly systematically address contribution of Human and Organizational Factors (HOFs) in accident causation. This is while results of a comprehensive study from 1988 to 2005, of more than 600 well-documented major failures in offshore structures show that approximately 80% of those failures are due to HOFs. This paper introduces a conceptual risk analysis framework to address the critical role of human and organizational factors in conducting and interpreting Negative Pressure Test (NPT), which according to many experts, is a critical step in ascertaining well integrity and quality of cementing during offshore drilling. The introduced framework in this study has been developed based on the analyses and lessons learned from the BP Deepwater Horizon accident and the conducted NPT by the DWH crew. However, the application of this framework is neither limited to the NPT nor to the DWH case. In fact, it can be generalized and be potentially useful for risk analysis of future oil and gas drillings as well. Along with a series of previous studies, analysis of the developed framework in this paper indicates that organizational factors are root causes of accumulated errors and questionable decisions made by personnel or management. Further analysis of this framework identifies personnel management, communication and processing uncertainties, and economic pressure as the most influencing organizational factors, which resulted in the misinterpretation of the negative pressure test. Investigative studies confirm that organizational factors such as personnel management and economic pressure are common contributing causes of other offshore drilling accidents as well. In summary, significance and contribution of this paper is based on three main factors: introducing a substantial risk assessment framework, analyzing HOFs as a main contributing cause of offshore drilling accidents, and concentrating on the NPT misinterpretation as a primary factor that affected the loss of well control and the subsequent blowout on the DWH.

Requisite Variety: A Concept to Analyze the Effects of Cultural Context for Technology Transfer

The Law of Requisite Variety states that “the system must possess as much regulatory variety as can be expected from the environment” (Ashby, 1957). This law may have some implications for culture. Specifically, the four cultural dimensions by which national cultures differ (as proposed by Hofstede, 1980a): Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, and Masculinity-Femininity influence Requisite Variety depending on the country to which the technology is transferred. Therefore, it is proposed in this study that Requisite Variety can be used as a concept to systematically investigate the influence of culture for technology transfer. This approach constitutes the incorporation of Human Factors considerations in technology transfer, as stated by Meshkati (1986 and 1989b) and Wisner (1985).