The Survey And Perspective Of Human Factors Associated With Maintenance Activity

Abstract

Maintenance is the work needed to keep plant and equipment in proper condition, and it is one of twenty elements of process safety management and the purpose of maintenance activities is to keep equipment in a good condition for performance during the operation process. However, ineffective maintenance may have a negative effect on performance. The consequence of ineffective maintenance can shorten the life of equipment or plant, can be harmful to workers who perform the maintenance tasks, and lead to accidents or incidents. Ineffective maintenance occurs as a result of many reasons, such as but not limited to human factors like complexity of maintenance task, poorly written maintenance procedure, fatigue and Organizational Factors such as poor experience, lack of training, lack of safety systems and barriers, and Poor health and safety culture. The aim of this study is to identify common human performance factors associated with maintenance and identify its influence on human error in aging oil and gas plants in the United Aarab Emirates. Five case studies are presented to identify human factors contributed to the accident during maintenance activities and to identify its linkage with human error, then survey strategy is used for data collection and a structured questionnaire is designed and distributed among people who involved in maintenance activities in UAE. The research concludes that understanding work procedures is influenced by the maintenance experience of the workers and communication between workers and management and safety culture has an influence on human error.