The role of the human in an age of automation
Bradley FarrellEY, 11 Mounts Bay Road, Perth, WA 6000, Australia. Email: bradley.farrell@au.ey.com
The APPEA Journal 58(2) 545-549 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ17188
Accepted: 6 March 2018 Published: 28 May 2018
Abstract
The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in Australia has a very large installed asset base that is highly automated. This paper explores established, emerging and experimental automations that could materially impact human work in existing LNG facilities. The focus is on automations that assist with physical interventions on the built asset. Riley’s method for assessing the level of automation is used on current and emerging automations in the industry. Use cases demonstrate that as automation increases, the primary focus of the human becomes one of system design, monitoring and intervention. The changing role of the human in this age of automaton has important implications for the development of human work skills for the future: with increasing automation, the nature of work will change. In the future (1) field workers need to supervise and maintain robots, (2) functional specialists need to define and debug robot instruction sets, and (3) system designers need to master the opportunities and challenges in an exciting new field: the robot-human-interface.
Keywords: autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), autonomy, cybernetics, intelligence, interface, remote operated vehicle (ROV), robot, robotics, scaffolding, turnarounds, underwater work.
Bradley Farrell is a Partner at EY and is the firm’s Oil and Gas Advisory Leader for Oceania. He specialises in providing consultancy services to exploration and production companies, especially those with interests in LNG. Bradley’s experience includes assignments related to: business transformation, asset strategy, enterprise performance management, business management systems, process analysis and improvement, organisation design and development and change management. Bradley’s experience covers capital projects, corporate services and operations. In his oil and gas sector role for EY, Bradley monitors current and emerging issues, represents the firm at industry events and participates in consultations on energy specific issues. |
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