The relationship between human factors and plant maintenance reliability in a petroleum processing organisation

Despite the considerable emphasis on improving maintenance reliability in the petroleum industry by adopting an engineering approach (International Standards Organization, 2006b), production losses, ineffective maintenance, and major disasters continue to occur (Urbina, 2010; Pidgeon, 2000). Analyses of these events have indicated that a failure to consider the human factors in the design (Taylor, 2007), operation (Øien, 2001a), or maintenance (Bea, 1998) of hazardous process technologies is often an important contributor. Based on research to evaluate the influence of these human factors on organisational performance, various models (Rasmussen, 1982; Dekker 2005) and taxonomies (Reason, 1998) for analysing organisational processes at the individual-, group- and organisational-level have been developed.