Safety critical task risk assessment in Offshore Installation decommissioning: A methodology

Human Engineering Limited is currently supporting the decommissioning of an asset in the North Sea. The aim of the work has been to ensure that the risks of human error when working in an unfamiliar environment, often on novel, one-off tasks, are controlled to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP). As part of this work, safety critical tasks have been identified and assessed from a human factors perspective, supporting the asset safety case and risk assessment. The methodology used for a number of the assessments is the Safety Critical Task Assessment (SCTA) Tool developed by Human Engineering, in line with the Health and Safety Executive´s (HSE) 7 step approach to risk assessment [1]. This paper describes this methodology, its use on an example from the platform and identifies a number of other challenges faced on the project.