Crew resource management for offshore production and maintenance

This paper describes a project sponsored by 13 companies and the HSE (OSD) to apply a form of human factors training called Crew Resource Management (CRM), which is widely used in aviation, to the training of offshore platform teams. The aim of the project is to design and evaluate the training to improve safety, productivity, and to reduce down time on offshore installations. A prototype course has been developed with support from a major operator who is sponsoring the project. The training is delivered over two days, and consists of six core topics (situation awareness, decision making, communication, team working, fatigue and stress) established from the findings of our own research concerning human factors offshore and our own experience of designing CRM courses for offshore emergency response teams. Feedback from the courses was generally positive, however, more work is required to tailor the course specifically for offshore teams.