(15a) Intelligent Procedures Design: A New Approach to Developing Operating Procedures to Minimise Non-Compliance and Maximise Effectiveness

Non–compliance to operating procedures is one of the most common causes of major process incidents and reduced operating efficiency.  However, most interventions designed to update procedures focus on cosmetic issues such as reformatting the layout of existing procedures without considering the underlying causes of non-compliance.  Intelligent Procedures Design offers a systematic, risk based approach to procedures development that takes into account the underlying causes of non-compliance:

Procedures are often seen by plant personnel as being irrelevant as they do not reflect the realities of operating the real plant.  Commitment to following procedures is low because they are not developed by the potential end users and are seen as irrelevant or out of date.  Conventional procedures design does not take into account the knowledge possessed by experienced personnel.  Intelligent procedures design uses interactive workshops to explore and document the knowledge possessed by operating personnel and to incorporate this knowledge in the procedures content.  it is assumed that all procedures need to consist of a detailed list of task steps.  In reality, most experienced operators do not need information at this level of detail, and rely on operational experience or job aids in the form of simple checklists or notebooks which contain the essential information.  Intelligent Procedures Design contains decision aids to allow procedures to be presented in a form most appropriate to the needs of the end user.  Finally, Intelligent Procedures Design provides a method for organising the content of procedures in a way which facilitates understanding and which uses the results of risk analyses to ensure that diligence is exercised in areas of high potential risk.

This paper presents a case study illustrating the improvements that can be produced by the application of the Intelligent Procedures design  methodology to an existing set of procedures.