Application of the Incident Potential Matrix Technique to Marine Seismic Operations

Marine Seismic Operations This paper describes a marine seismic operation in Europe and Africa which operated on average 15 deep marine seismic vessels in 1993. Most of the vessels were active in the North Sea. The majority of the vessels were involved in complex multistreamer 3D seismic projects. Efforts to reduce risk of accidents An integrated plan has been developed to minimise the risk of accidents happening in this operation. An electronic mail system is used to report accidents and near-accidents to the office. Investigations are initiated onboard the vessels and in the office to identify root causes and necessary actions. Actions may involve improvement of equipment, development or improvement of procedures or new training programs for personnel. In addition to audits initiated by clients, internal audits of vessels are also organised at least once every six months. Incident Potential Matrix. In 1993 a specific tool, the Incident Potential Matrix (IPM), was introduced as part of the reporting system from the vessels. The purpose of the IPM is to categorise accidents and near accidents according to their potential severity. The IPM is shown in Figure 1. The vertical scale represents the potential severity of a personnel, equipment or environment related incident. The horizontal scale represents the frequency with which the situation occurs when this particular incident may lead to an accident. The IPM was introduced to the organisation in January 1993 as one of the standard monthly reports from the field. All vessels were asked to categorise the incidents they experienced and give them an IPM index. Managers have in their Standard of Performance, which is an important tool in our Management by Objectives (MBO), to investigate a number of serious near-accidents, defined by the IPM Index. Classification of risks The reporting system categorises incidents into risk types. Only incidents categorised as relating to personnel and/or the environment are used in this study. 393 such incidents were reported from the fleet from January to September 1993. 284 of these incidents were near accidents/potential hazards. One of the goals with the introduction of the IPM was to stimulate the reporting of near accidents/hazardous situations. P. 713^