Planning Area

Through Planning area actions, companies improve performance by establishing standard requirements, by instituting high risk identification and evaluations, and by managing change to equipment and operations.

For example under OSA Participant Action 5: Perform Risk Assessments for Common Process Safety Hazards, Participants will perform risk assessments for potentially high-risk activities associated with drilling, completions, flowback, well service and ongoing production operations and identify safeguards to mitigate those risks.

Purpose

The purpose is to improve performance by establishing standard requirements, through high risk identification, planning, evaluations, and by managing change.

The key elements of a successful Planning are:

  • Standards
  • High risk identification & evaluation
  • Change management

 

Standards

  • Define scope, document requirements, and  identify methods and/or procedures to be followed
  • Communicate standards and procedures to workers on location 
  • Maintain standards, procedures and other critical information to ensure documents are current
 

High Risk Identification & Evaluation

  • Conduct planning in advance of work to avoid unexpected events
  • Assess hazards, identify their associated controls, and take action to reduce operational risk
  • Identify and account for hazards associated with ongoing adjacent work

 

Change Management

  • Establish a process to manage changes to equipment and operations
  • Have adequate plans to address permanent and temporary changes to critical equipment and operations
  • Define approval authority, consider HSE impacts, communicate the change, and train impacted personnel
  

 

The OSA provides resources to support companies as they work to improve their safety performance.

Planning Resources