Human Factors and Design Principles for Safe Remote Operations in the Petroleum Sector

The petroleum sector is a safety-critical sector that is increasingly investing in automation and remote operation technologies to increase the safety and efficiency of its processes. For a safe and resilient transition, the petroleum sector would benefit from integration of human factors approaches to optimize system design in complex human-automation interactive systems. While most research focuses on the investigation of failures and accidents in complex systems, our aim in this paper is to explore the design strategies that enhance the overall system performance. We consider this a successful design. The research question that we posed was: what human factors principles can be deployed in interactive automation and remote operation systems design in the petroleum sector? This paper is part of the Meaningful Human Control (MAS) project where a larger literature review was conducted to identify successful design principles across various sectors. This article zooms in on the petroleum sector literature. Following a set of inclusion criteria, we have selected a representative sample of articles to be included in analysis. A total of nine articles were selected for full-text analysis, using the thematic analysis method. Interventions deployed and recommended in the petroleum sector were derived from the articles. The results showed the importance of predesign stage, inclusion of the right expertise early on. Furthermore, Human-Centred Design guidelines should be applied. All the stages must be peer-reviewed, and verification and validation tests must be conducted throughout the design process. Additionally, organizational human factors principles, which are key to successful automation and remote operations in the petroleum sector, should be incorporated.

Keywords: Human factors, Human-centred design, Automation, Remote operation, Petroleum.