According to Mark Hutcherson, director of operational excellence for ConocoPhillips, operational risk management (ORM) is just one of the features in a toolset ConocoPhillips is implementing across the vast majority of its global operations, enhancing the safety and work practices of up to 10,000 front-line operations and maintenance users and managers.
"ORM shows us how to manage risk throughout our daily operations, as well as throughout our turnarounds and shutdowns," said Hutcherson.
Additionally, the ORM tool enhances standardization and consistency in work permits, risk management and isolation activities.
"Standardizing our permit to work process around the globe gives us the ability to continuously improve in a really seamless way across all of our operations," Hutcherson said in a recent online presentation titled "The Connected Worker: Finding the Right Approach to Change." "It gives us the ability to use analytics to understand risk profiles in our work activities. We have the ability to go fully paperless with this, and we're going to be able to consume a lot of data."
The ORM tool also provides substantial reduction of supervisor and crew wait times and overall downtime.
Effective leadership and organizational readiness at all levels is pivotal to success, from executives who define the vision to front-line workers "and folks that are out here in the trenches day after day, because those workers can be some of the most productive leaders and champions of change," Hutcherson said. "You've got to get that buyin at all levels."
Hutcherson underscored the need for leaders to be aligned around consistent messaging.
"That needs to disseminate across our different operations, and coach leaders on how to visibly and vocally champion that change. Leadership needs to own it the whole way through," he said. "Deliver relevant and timely communications and, taking those opportunities, enable positive experiences that foster awareness, excitement and engagement."
Connected worker technologies and 'the secret sauce'
ConocoPhillips is embracing ORM by partnering with Sphera, a global provider of integrated risk management software and services.
"In operations, technology alone won't differentiate us," Hutcherson observed. "Technology solutions are out there for everyone to [use] in the work process, and they're plentiful. You've got to focus on those more structured behaviors of work processes. That's the hard stuff, and that's the secret sauce."
In terms of culture, it is necessary to have an organization that learns from its mistakes.
"A good knowledge-sharing model that helps people establish the networks is key," Hutcherson said. "And if there's one thing to take away, remember that the technology should always be in service to our safety, making our workforce successful and proud of what they do, and ultimately adding value to our bottom line."
Regarding how ConocoPhillips is using connected worker technologies to help address the industrial skills gap, Hutcherson said the company has very strong competency management and training programs, a dedicated project team and "folks who are specifically going after organizational change management."
"We're trying to build consistency and standardization across the globe," Hutcherson reiterated. "We assign regional subject matter experts (SMEs) who know the process extremely well. We actually pulled them out of their current day jobs and focused them exclusively on developing the training materials, understanding their connections to the workforce and what is needed."
Because those SMEs are based throughout ConocoPhillips' different regions, they are able to share and leverage each other's ideas, with one organization perhaps having a stronger training or competency program than the other. Hutcherson said he is confident this SME team approach will result in a very consistent ORM program.
"Improved risk management and mitigation will keep employees and contractors on our worksites safe," he concluded. "It's going to be top-notch."