Safety culture in the offshore oil and gas industry is challenging to quantify, especially with 80% of personnel being third-party contractors.
Dr. Ivan Damnjanovic, associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the director of engineering project management at Texas A&M University, has been awarded a $733,631 grant from The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to develop quantifiable measurements of safety culture improvements.
“Currently, the safety climate is assessed mostly from the organizational viewpoint; however, the industry’s reliance on external contractors means team members may not share the same training, experiences or even language,” he said. “We are looking to develop processes that can help offshore plant managers better understand how project requirements affect safety culture, and what could we do to improve it.”
The GRP awarded $7.25 million in grants for eight projects, including Damnjanovic’s, focused on strengthening safety culture in the offshore oil and gas industry.