W2 Blog /Hamed AL Foori

Week 2 Blog: Improving HSE Reporting Mechanism to the OPWP’s HSE Department

Problem Background

The Project Implementation Department receives monthly progress reports from all the power and water projects under construction. Health, Safety and Environment statistics for that month are included in the report. These statistics are crucial to OPWP to ensure projects are being carried out in a safe manner and as per the local and international laws and standards. Once these statistics are received, the PI department transfer these data to the HSE department for their review. A common issue in this monthly task includes reporting late reporting of HSE data and reporting incorrect numbers in some occasions.

The goal is to come up with new HSE reporting mechanism to ensure data validation and shorter reporting time.

Root Cause Analysis by Problem Tree Analysis

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Figure 1: Root Cause Analysis of Low Quality HSE Reporting

The root cause analysis shows that because reporting HSE statistics is required as a monthly basis as soon as information has received, data extraction and lack of communication between the HSE department and the site contributes to some confusion and delay in reporting the statistics.

 Feasible Alternatives

Because the current task is being done by the project engineer, there are three feasible alternatives to solve or fix the root cause problem as explained above for improving reporting and recording of HSE statistics.  

1- Developing Master HSE Excel Sheet to be used by the HSE Officer.

The Master HSE Sheet will consist of VPA program to extract all the HSE statistics from multiple progress reports.

2- To develop an online HSE monitoring tool

HSE monitoring tool will be used between the HSE officer and the project owner to upload HSE statistics on the website and to be monitored remotely. Companies like Schlumberger is currently utilizing technology to obtain immediate HSE performance data, which are available to all staff. Such a tool provides accessibility to HSE reports, events and tracking records.  

3- HSE officer to take the task.

HSE officer to do the current task of extracting the data manually once the reports have been received.

Outcomes of Each Alternative Method (Pros and Cons):

Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of each HSE reporting mechanisms proposed for the HSE Department.

Alternative Reporting Mechanism	Advantages	Disadvantages
HSE Master Sheet	- Fast extraction of data from progress reports. - Task could be done by anyone	- Stakeholders need to agree on the format.
Online HSE Monitor	- Quick notification of HSE cases. - No manipulation of HSE data	- Stakeholders to agree to share HSE data online. - HSE data may not be updated online.
Manual Task by HSE Officer	- HSE officer is in charge of the HSE reporting and will have direct contact with project owner.	HSE officer may not accept this mechanism

Selection of Acceptable Criteria

Based on the advantages and disadvantages of each reporting mechanisms explained in Table 1, the acceptance criteria can be developed to be as following:

1- Time: It is crucial to transfer the data from all the progress reports into the HSE Department database in the shortest possible time.

2- Efforts required to develop the technique: This criterion explains that the technique should be feasible to be developed and does not require much recourses.

3- Easiness of implementing the mechanism: This criterion explains how easy it is to use the selected reporting technique and to be implemented between the stakeholders effectively.

Comparing the Proposed Reporting Mechanism with the Acceptable Criteria

The following table examines each mechanism against the acceptable criteria defined in the previous section to determine the best feasible option. The ranking method will be from 0 to 4 where 0 is very low/poor/difficult and 4 is very high/easy  

Key: Time (4: Short time required for reporting, 0: Long time)

         Development Effort (4: Very hard to develop, 0: no effort to develop)

         Easiness to Implement (4: Easy to be implemented and accepted, 0: hard to be accepted)

Technique/ Acceptance Criteria	Time	Development Effort	Easiness to Implementation	Total Score
HSE Excel Sheet	3	2	3	8
Online Monitor	4	0	1	5
Manually by HSE Officer	1	3	2	6

Table 3: Pair-Wise Comparison for Each Acceptable Criteria Against the HSE Reporting Mechanism

Selection of the Best Alternative Reporting Mechanism

From the previous study, it was found that developing an HSE master excel file to report HSE statistics is more feasible since once the excel file is ready, it does not take that much of time to report the data and it’s easy to be implemented and accepted by all parties but it may take some effort to develop the format of the excel sheet. Over all, the first alternative scored the highest with 8 points.

Implementation on the Real World  

Because of the current challenges we are currently facing in reporting the HSE data, it’s time to implement a new methodology by ensuring quality and reducing time. This new HSE master sheet will allow smooth reporting between projects under construction and OPWP’s HSE Department.

After having the sheet format accepted between all parties, a tracking sheet may be used to track the time consumed on reporting as well as how smoothly it is being implemented. The results then will be compared with the current situation to see whether there was earned value from this small project.

Reference:

 Creating a Pairwise Comparison Chart. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.eahoover.com/dconn-web/EDP/Developing_a_PCC.pdf

European Integration Office. (n.d.). Guide to THE LOGICAL FRAMEWORK APPROACH. Retrieved from http://www.evropa.gov.rs/evropa/ShowDocument.aspx?Type=Home&Id=525

Health, Safety and the Environment (HSE). (2017). Retrieved from http://www.slb.com/hse.aspx