That is Not a Barrier! Investigating Improper Barrier Placement in BowtiesUsing Road Traffic Bowties as a Case Study

摘要

Road transport is one of the biggest risks posed to Oil and Gas operations.There is a lot of time,resourcesand effort spent on understanding,controlling and managing this risk.The use of the Bowtie methodologyhas greatly improved the management of the road transport risk.The paper evaluates a number of roadtransport Bowties using the DDA(Detect,Decide,Act)approach.The analysis shows that due to improperbarrier placement within the road transport Bowties there is generally an improper understanding of thetrue risk that road transport poses to organisations.Systems seen as having many barriers are assumed tobe relatively safe.In most instances,however,there is actually only one DDA barrier(compliance withprocedures)and all other risk management activities conducted by organisations influence the effectivenessof that procedural barrier.This explains the difficulty organisations experience with further improving roadtransport outcomes.The failure to properly apply a rigorous standard to barrier placement has created adifference between the perceived and actual risk.This difference can lead to accidents and incidents This paper demonstrates that many road transport Bowties currently do not accurately show the reality ofthe situation those Bowties are intended to represent.This will inevitably lead to risk management failures.These failures will stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what barriers are controlling risks on thepreventative side of the Bowtie while most controls(e.g.ABS,air-bags)are recovery barriers.