Register      Login
Australian Energy Producers Journal Australian Energy Producers Journal Society
Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)

The role of the human in an age of automation

Bradley Farrell
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

EY, 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.


References

Ball, K., Arbus, T., Odi, U., and Sneed, J. (2017). The Rise of the Machines, Analytics, and the Digital Oilfield: Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Machine Learning and Cognitive Analytics. Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTEC).

Birol, F., and Director, I. E. (2017). Digitalization will transform the global energy system. Energy News 35, 3–5.

Bruckmann, T., Mattern, H., Spengler, A., Reichert, C., Malkwitz, A., and König, M. (2016). Automated construction of masonry buildings using cable-driven parallel robots. In ‘33rd International International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC), January 2016’. Vol. 33, p. 1. (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Department of Construction Economics & Property).

Chi, H. L., Chai, J., Wu, C., Zhu, J., Wang, X., and Liu, C. (2017). Scaffolding progress monitoring of LNG plant maintenance project using BIM and image processing technologies. In ‘5th International Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS), 17 July 2017’. pp. 1–6 (IEEE).

Heyer, C. (2010). Human-robot interaction and future industrial robotics applications. In’ The 2010 IEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Taipei, Taiwan, 18–22 October 2010’. pp. 4749–4754. (IEEE).

Huvenne, V. A., Robert, K., Marsh, L., Iacono, C. L., Le Bas, T., and Wynn, R. B. (2018). ROVs and AUVs. In ‘Submarine Geomorphology’. (Eds A. Micallef, S. Krastel and A. Savini A). pp. 93–108. (Springer International Publishing AG: Cham, Switzerland). 10.1007/978-3-319-57852-1_7

Liljebäck, P., and Mills, R. (2017). Eelume: A flexible and subsea resident IMR vehicle. In ‘OCEANS 2017, Aberdeen, 19–22 June 2017’. pp. 1–4.

Nianzhong, L., Kaiming, C., and Jianhua, F. (2005). Intelligent Pigging Technology and Application for Gas Pipelines. Natural Gas Industry 25, 116–120.

Parasuraman, R., and Riley, V. (1997). Humans and automation: Use, misuse, disuse, abuse. Human Factors 39, 230–253.
Humans and automation: Use, misuse, disuse, abuse.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Parasuraman, R., Sheridan, T. B., and Wickens, C. D. (2000). A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Part A, Systems and Humans 30, 286–297.
A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Riley, V. (1989). A general model of mixed-initiative human-machine systems. In ‘Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting’. Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 124–128. (SAGE Publications).

Sheridan, T. B. (1994). Human supervisory control. In ‘Design of work and development of personnel in advanced manufacturing’. (Eds G. Salvendy and W. Karwowski) pp. 79–102.(John Wiley & Sons, Inc: New York).

Sheridan, T. B., and Verplank, W. L. (1978). Human and computer control of undersea teleoperators. Available at: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a057655.pdf [verified 14 March 2018].

Shukla, A., and Karki, H. (2016a). Application of robotics in onshore oil and gas industry—A review Part I. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 75, 490–507.
Application of robotics in onshore oil and gas industry—A review Part I.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Shukla, A., and Karki, H. (2016b). Application of robotics in offshore oil and gas industry—A review Part II. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 75, 508–524.
Application of robotics in offshore oil and gas industry—A review Part II.Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |