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

Big data for smart safety: applying engineering control analytics to predictive safety

How Boon Tay A D , Nicola Marshall B , Andrew McColm C and Michael Wood A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Deloitte Risk Advisory Pty Ltd, 123 St Georges Terrace, Perth, WA 6000, Australia.

B Deloitte Risk Advisory Pty Ltd, 123 Eagle Street, Brisbane City, Qld 4000, Australia.

C Deloitte Risk Advisory Pty Ltd, 225 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia.

D Corresponding author. Email: HTay@deloitte.com.au

The APPEA Journal 59(2) 734-737 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ18222
Accepted: 7 March 2019   Published: 17 June 2019

Abstract

Traditional health, safety and environment (HSE) reporting communicates the ‘what’ but not the ‘why’ of safety events. Organisations’ operations-data footprints are growing in volume and velocity but data are often siloed and can be of poor quality. This results in an inability to connect the dots and see through the ‘noise’, to identify patterns of high risk behaviour and root causes of high risk incidents to fully realise the true value of available data and deliver well informed decision making. Deloitte has been working with large organisations across the energy and resources industry, connecting traditional HSE data with contextual data, including employees, contractors, rosters, timesheets, training, and environmental and operational data to surface insights that would otherwise be hidden. By applying exploratory machine learning techniques to these datasets, the sector can gain new insights that were previously ‘hidden’ in data siloes. Drawing on lessons learnt, the paper explains how predictive analytical techniques can enable organisations to identify groups of employees at the highest risk of incidents and, critically, what differentiates these groups, to design tailored interventions and optimally allocate finite resources to manage HSE risk. The paper also describes key factors found to be driving high severity or repeat incidents and details how data conventionally used for asset management and operations optimisation can be analysed alongside HSE data to characterise potential control failures. The outcome is a framework that can be applied to provide continuous controls monitoring of material risks and critical assets.

Keywords: predictive safety analytics, machine learning, advanced analytics, tailored interventions, HSE, due diligence.

How Boon Tay is a Partner with Deloitte and leads its Risk Analytics practice in WA. He is an experienced data-analytics practitioner, with over 12 years of analytics and process improvement experience across mining and oil and gas, utilities and public sector. How Boon is passionate about safety analytics and applying data science to driving strategic safety improvement, and leads the development of the advanced safety analytics capability for Deloitte Australia.

Nicola Marshall is a Partner with Deloitte and leads its Risk Analytics practice in Brisbane. Nicola is a commercial minded data analytics professional, bringing together over 10 years of analytics experience, together with a business focus to derive commercially relevant, actionable insights through data. Nicola specialises in safety analytics, finance, business process and conduct analytics, with deep industry experience in financial services/energy and resources.

Andrew McColm is a Principal in Deloitte’s Work Health and Safety (WHS) practice. He is a former senior WHS Prosecutor who has over 13 years’ experience as General Manager and Principal Consultant with national WHS consultancies and has performed a corporate WHS function within a Queensland gas company.

Michael Wood is a Director in Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice. He has over a decade of experience specialising in the development and execution of strategies to improve the productivity and performance of business through energy optimisation and the evaluation of new and emerging technologies.


References

APPEA (2018). Inquiry into work health and safety of workers in the offshore petroleum industry. Senate Standing Committees on Education and Employment. Available at https://www.appea.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Submission-Inquiry-into-work-health-and-safety-of-workers-in-the-offshore-petroleum-industry.pdf [verified 24 March 2019].

SafeWork (2018). Fatality statistics. Available at https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/statistics-and-research/statistics/fatalities/fatality-statistics [verified 24 March 2019].

Smith, S. (2018). Safety practices in the oil and gas industry (infographic). EHS today. Available at https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/safety-practices-oil-and-gas-industry-infographic [verified 24 March 2019].