(116h) The Connected Worker: E-Checklists

AdvanSix began the Connected Worker journey focusing on rounds and inspections. These activities bring immediate operational benefits including hazard recognition, data visualization and cross-referencing between critical field data and other plant operation data. Application to checklists was not initially considered- our technology supplier was unfamiliar with a checklist application and informal polls/benchmarking suggested that electronic checklists were not being pursued across the chemical industry. Nevertheless, because checklists are widely used to improve Human Performance and are commonly claimed as risk reduction measures, an electronic checklist (e-checklist) was developed for a loading/unloading operation to prototype the technology. Subsequent incidents caused by checklist failures accelerated interest in the new application, including in high-frequency operations where checklists can become ineffective.

This paper will describe the challenges facing the e-checklist prototype, including acceptance by the operators, and will share some of the inherent advantages offered by e-checklists over paper checklists.