IT Management Study Report Assignment Help Analysis: Knowledge management system in Esso’s gap plant

IT Management Study Report Assignment Help Analysis Review:

Introduction

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) can be defined as the system or technique that can be used as a tool to support the management of knowledge in an organization. KMS can be applied to generate, codify as well as transfer knowledge (Ruggles, 1997). The KMS is gaining popularity day by day as the management is realizing the importance of existence of appropriate knowledge to make its workforce competent and efficient (Gartner Group, 2002). In fact more and more companies are undertaking this tool and it is becoming widely acceptable. Moreover, in a 2000 survey on Knowledge Management practices (KPMG, 2000) 81% of the companies surveyed engaged in some KM practices or initiatives, all using technology to support them.

An Overview on” What happened?”

The Esso Longford gas explosion of 1998 was an industrial accident of catastrophic nature which took place at Esso natural gas plant at Longford in the Australian state of Victoria’s Gippsland region. Two workers were killed and eight were injured in this accident. The explosion resulted in disturbed gas supply to the state of Victorial and also led to shut down of major industries of Victoria and affected the cooking and heating in most of the households of Victoria.

Blaming operators for negligence on their part for any kind of accidents that takes place in a unit is a very simple, easy and frequently used route by management. Same route was followed by the management of Esso in front of Royal Commission as well. They claimed that the supervisor and operator on duty at that time should have the knowledge that a brittle fracture can happen in case attempts are made to reintroduce a warm liquid. The company claimed that operators were given training to confront these types of problems in the plant. They also produced training records as a proof that operators were given adequate knowledge to deal with these kind of situations. However, the commission was of the view that the operators were not able to judge the seriousness of the situation and failed to evaluate how dangerous the situation was. This inadequacy of knowledge on the part of operators was clearly indicating that management was not providing them a systematic training at work. Even the plant manager was not able to understand the level of danger associated with the embrittlement of cold metal. In fact he was not present at the plant at the time when this incident took place (Dawson, 1999:197). Thus the conclusion which Royal Commission made was “ insufficient, inadequate , improper and incomplete training given to the operators was the root cause of the accident” (Dawson, 1999:234). It is clear therefore that operator error does not adequately account for the Longford incident. This is a general finding of all inquiries into major accidents (Reason, 1997).

Lack on part of Esso or may be failure to carry out a critical identification process which is hazardeous in nature contributed maximum towards the aaccident. This idebtification process is an industry standard and is also called  HAZOP (short for hazard and operability study). Under this procedure, every wrong thing that may occur in a unit is imagined, and then engineering solutions, procedures and methods are developed to avoid such things. The plant at which this accident took place is oldest of the three plants which are located in Longford refinery. Though HAZOPs were carried out the other two plants but due to ignorance this one was left behind.

Due to some bottlenecks in resourcing, the proposed HAZOP was deffered for indefinite time at this plant. There were great possibility of detecting the possibility of embrittlement of cold temperature in case HAZOP would have been carried out and this disaster would have been avoided. This shortfall on the end of Esso was even criticized by its parent company and they were of the belief that the failure to carry out this HAZOP was a contributing factor to the accident. This hazard was not identified at the proper time and it clearly indicates that instructions which are given at operational levels did not mention what should br done in the time when there is lean oil failure. As a result, operators were not able to decide the seriousness of the situation and thus failed to handle it in the way it should have been. The bottomline is, improper training was the training was a consequence of inadequate attention by the company to hazard identification.

Quotes from Royal Commision Report:

“In September 1998 Esso Australia’s gas plant at Longford in Victoria suffered a major fire. Two men were killed and the state’s gas supply was severed for two weeks, causing chaos in Victorian industry and considerable hardship in homes which were dependent on gas. What happened was that a warm liquid system (known as the “lean oil” system) failed, allowing a metal heat exchanger to become intensely cold and therefore brittle. When operators tried to reintroduce warm lean oil, the vessel fractured and released a large quantity of gas which found an ignition source and exploded. In what follows I shall trace the reasons for this event, relying on evidence provided to the Royal Commission which investigated the disaster. (For further details see Hopkins, 2000).”

Root Causes of Accident – “Why it happened?”

Absence of a culture in which people responsible for the operation and management of the system should posses the appropriate knowledge regarding the factors which are essential for the safety of the whole system. These factors include human, technical, organizational and environmental factors.

The explosion in the gas plant was the result of  rupture in the heat exchange unit as workers were trying to pump hot oil through a freezing equipment. As a result of this explosion, Victorian homes and businesses were deprived of gas supplies for almost two weeks. Due to this explosion, industry suffered a loss of almost $1.3 billion. The 1998 Esso Longford gas explosion is the result of ultimate failure of the management of to train its employees with suitable knowledge needed to handle the accident that took place. Moreover, it is not only the failure on the front of imparting appropriate knowledge to employees on how to deal with the situation; but there was also lack of essential information that should have been formed as a suitable operating procedure.

Deficiency on the part of operators and supervisors can be attributed directly for the improper training given to employees. The Occupational Health and Safety Act was also breached by the Esso Longford as it was not able to maintain a safe and healthy working environment.

Esso Longford was transferring its engineers to Melbourne, this clearly indicates that the level of supervision was being reduced at Longford and the principle of quality was being compromised. There was a fault for more than a week in a valve which was critical in nature at Esso‘s Longford gas plant. The impending disaster was being warned by some very obvious signs at the plant location. If sources are to be believed, not a single instruction was given to close down the plant even after the obvious warning signs. Defect in the valve led to the wild fluctuations in temperature in equipments which are wild in nature.

Identification of the knowledge that needs to be managed

• Designing of Esso is needed to be evaluated critically in the Longford areas.
• Standards of operations, practices and policies need to be reviewed periodically.
• Esso should design its training programs in the manner that it should impart knowledge of all identifiable hazards and the procedures required to deal with them.
• The key recommendations to Esso is establishment of hard-faced obligation for training. This incident also calls for the establishment of body at the level of state government who should be responsible to administration of procedures that are essential for the safety at all the major hazard facilities.

Functionality of Knowledge Management System

Logic

The selection, placement and ongoing assessment should be with extreme carefulness. There should be a proper traing session for  the employees before they are sent for real time exposure in the plant. In order to ensure that the level of experience and knowledge  which is necessary in an individual is being maintained, an effective management system should be developed for it. Esso should provide an ongoing training to  refresh the understanding and applications of desired protective measures related to safety, health and environmental hazards

A workbook should be maintained in which employees can fill the details about their training sessions. This will help in maintaining a record as well as can be used as an assessment tool.

Apart from adequacy of knowledge, there are some basic operational practices which should be religiously followed by operators of the plant. First and foremost practise is related to shift handover and operator log entries. Other pratices include strict monitoring of condition of plant, an appropiate response to alarms, process of reporting to supervisors and undertaking appropriate checks before making adjustments to process variables.

If the management at Esso would have been more active with respect to day to day supervision of operations at the plant these practises would have never been incepted. Thus there is an urgent requirement to develop a system where management keeps a close supervision on routine practises followed by operators at the plant.

 In order to improve the integrity of operations and accountability of maintenance, there should be a manual which can measure the degree of actual result and the expected result. This requires formation of a system which can make sure that the guidelines are being met. The system will also help in establishing a degree of compliance with the degree of predetermined frequencies

For any processing facility, its safety and efficiency depends largely on the scope of information and skillful knowledge possessed by individuals who are involved in the operation of a plant. Thus in order to ensure this safety and efficiency, management should form an efficient channel of communication to transfer information effectively and efficiently. There is also need of  some means which can systematically monitor and eliminate the unsafe and inefficient operations  at the plant.

A prompt alarming system is a lifeline of any gas plant. Facilitating a safe and an efficient  operational activity at the  ground by giving warnings to the people responsible for smooth running of plant is the key objective of an alarming system. In case there are some unfavorable conditions inside the vessel or equipment strayed outside normal operating parameters, the alrms warns by ringing. Instrumentation alarms should be  linked to a display in the control room. Each alarm should have a loud audible signal as well as a visual display which would light up either on the alarm panel or on the Bailey panel. Once activated, an alarm should be acknowledged by a person in the control room, usually the panel operator. Acknowledgement was effected by pressing a button to silence the audible alarm. In the case of Bailey alarms, the visual alarm signal then remained active until the process condition monitored by the alarm was brought back within normal operating parameters. The alarm then reset automatically. In the case of the original alarm panels, the operator was required to reset the alarm manually after process conditions returned within alarm range settings.

Conclusion

Any management cannot just blindly blame its operators for the major accidents. They are the key people behind the plant and therefore it is their responsibility to make sure that all the essential policies that are essential for safe working of a unit are met on timely basis. To prevent an accident, one should be able to identify the hazards systematically. A good auditing team is a must to identify the bad news on priority basis. Reliance on lost time injury data in major hazard industries is itself a major hazard. Relevant warning signs must be specified by the good reporting system. They must provide feedback to reporters and an opportunity for reporters to comment on feedback. An extensive research should be done while installing an alarming system so that warnings of trouble do not get dismissed as normal (normalised). Senior management must accept responsibility for the management of hazardous processes. A safety case regime should apply to all major hazard facilities.

MC99

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