Abstract
Introduction: offshore platforms face increasing maintenance demands with fixed amount of workforce. Over time, the progressive deterioration of installations can be evidenced leading companies to adopt distinguished strategies to recover operational integrity.
Objective: to present the development of a Rapid Ergonomics Diagnostic Methodology (REDM) to evaluate a group of platforms and revisit the concept of degraded mode of operation regarding safety and operational reliability.
Method: the REDM was built in 4 stages and applied in 12 platforms of the studied company. For each one, the historical processes of its current operating mode were retraced.
Results: this REDM allowed revealing general principles to systematize situations that should be improved, understanding broad processes that led to the accumulation of ergonomically inadequate conditions and recovering part of the experience accumulated by the embarked teams. The key was the preparation for shipments based on the ergonomics team and workers experience, both, onshore and offshore.
Conclusion: REDMs can help to reverse chronic degradation processes by providing an overview of on boardwork and living conditions, the platforms’ unique trajectories and the positive workers’ contribution, discussing changes and necessary actions for a given route inflection.
Keywords:
offshore work; petroleum industry; ergonomics analysis; rapid ergonomics diagnostic; degraded mode of operation