Emergency Response Plans for Oil and Gas

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In the last blog, I discussed how constructive simulation might be used to improve the quality of safety briefings.  This time I am going to discuss Emergency Response Plans (ERPs) and how constructive simulation can potentially revolutionize how these are prepared and used.

First of all, let's discuss WHY the industry creates Emergency Response Plans.  "Because we have to" is probably the wrong response.  "Because it helps create the conditions for success, mitigate loss and improve response when something goes wrong" is probably closer to the correct answer.  So stepping back, we can see that there is a need to make the potential response "successful" and that we need to limit losses when something goes wrong - this is the root of "why".

But what has happened?  People get focused on the "wrong answer" and create a 1000 page tome that no one reads (or can read) that checks all the boxes but in the end achieves absolutely nothing.  The problems with a long, text-based Emergency Response Plan are:

  a. they are hard to understand;
  b. the information is not readily accessible in an emergency;
  c. information is scattered in different places;
  d. it is hard to get an overview of "what is supposed to happen" in an emergency;
  e. it is difficult to translate text into "action" when it comes time to practice or when the real event occurs

So the current state is that we have (possibly) fully compliant Emergency Response Plans that are (mostly) useless.  How can we fix the problem?

Anyone remember back before GIS systems such as ESRI existed?  There were thousands of drawings with information in various formats which were difficult to overlay and cross reference, difficult to share and difficult to understand.  Sound familiar?

The same way that GIS has transformed the way the geo-information is stored, Constructive Simulation has the ability to transform Emergency Response Plan information from STATIC, difficult to use and understand to a simple and DYNAMIC tool that can be re-used in dozens of ways.

Here is an example of how a Constructive Simulation could assist in the creation of an Emergency Response Plan:

1.  Emergency Response Plan creator gathers relevant data from the existing GIS system and loads these into the constructive simulation.  Much of this information can be automatically or semi-automatically loaded into the simulation and this would usually only need to be done one time for all the emergency response plans in the area.  Nothing new is required - this is the same information that is needed for the paper-based ERP, except that it is in digital format. The information loaded would include:

  a.  Oil and Gas infrastructure
  b.  Surrounding municipal infrastructure
  c.  Terrain information
  d.  Local response equipment locations and catalog
  e.  Distant/on-call response equipment locations and catalog

2.  Emergency Response Plan creator then plans out a number of disasters using the constructive simulation. For a pipeline or wide area infrastructure this could be breaks, fires or explosions in different sectors (wherever a different response is needed).  For fixed infrastructure such as a gas well, it might be varying wind directions to show the differences in response.  With a modern constructive simulation, each disaster should not take a long time to prepare and place within the simulation - maybe one or two hours per disaster location.

3.  Emergency Response Plan creator finally lays out the actual emergency response by giving orders to the simulated entities within the simulation (the ones loaded during step 1).  Of course the response is done in accordance with municipal and mutual aid agreements that are in place.  This is done for each "disaster" that was created in step 2.  Depending on the size, duration and danger, each of the responses can be created in a couple of hours (the start state is usually the same).  Usually each disaster and response are saved as a single scenario.

That's it! Once the Digital Emergency Response Plan is created in the constructive simulation, the electronic file can be shared with consultants and government agencies with the same ease that a GIS shape file can be shared.  What you have at this point is a terrific digital product that has the following advantages over its poor cousin, the paper-based ERP:

• Fewer chances for errors - the resources (simulation entities) are placed on a visual map.  It is easy to see if there is something missing or out of place
• Easier to Use - the product, once created, can be used in multiple ways without each user having to re-visualize and recreate the data.
• Time and Space - the real world is taken into account when running the simulated ERP.  A truck can't drive faster than a truck can drive, and the simulated truck burns gas the same way a real truck does.  It is far easier to spot planning shortfalls in a simulation that uses time and space as opposed to a paper plan.
• Reuse, reuse, reuse - plot the data once and re-use it for multiple purposes, multiple times (more on this in a minute)
• Faster and less effort to create the plan

REUSE, REDUCE, RECYCLE

As was stated above, once you have the data in the simulation format, you can use it for multiple purposes.  Here are some examples:

1. Internal company policies and procedures - visualize the problem using the simulation and work together to solve the issues with the ERP and wide-area/long-term response
2. Safety briefings (as discussed in the last blog)
3. Internal Training - run mini-exercises to provide better training than a briefing in about the same amount of time
4. Provide government agencies with an easy to understand ERP document that they can visualize and approve faster and easier.  If a picture tells a thousand words, a dynamic simulation must be worth a million words.  Of course some text-based information will always be required.
5. Conduct Town Hall Meetings with a tool that lets landowners see and understand the ERP and get a level of comfort that you know what you are doing. Also it will be easier for them to understand what they must do in an emergency
6. Yearly Training - using a simulation is much more effective and realistic than a tabletop exercise, and it costs much, much less than a live exercise.  Live exercises will always be required, but this provides better training in the interim for a lot lower cost.

In summary a Digital ERP can provide significant value to all parties. Government approval agencies can approve plans faster because they understand it better and don't need to wade through a miry document to get the information they need.  Companies can produce better ERPs faster than before and at a greatly reduced cost due to the data reuse and less waste generation of words that no-one reads.  Landowners benefit because they have an easier to understand ERP that can be shown and validated with a simple to use tool.  Finally the public benefits because they have a better system that takes advantage of the recent advances in simulation technology to produce better ERPs that are being properly approved, diligently tested and exercised and efficiently approved with less bureaucracy.  

I hope that this has generated some interest and discussion.  I will discuss the validation of Emergency Response Plans in my next blog.

Keep Training!

Bruce

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Constructive Simulation for the Oil and Gas Industry

Several people have asked about the application of constructive simulation for the Oil and Gas Industry.  As we have seen, safety and loss prevention are huge items that are at the top of everyone’s mind today, mainly due to the problems with BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  As previous blogs have discussed, constructive simulation has broad applicability to nearly any public safety scenarios – how can simulation be used as a tool for the Oil and Gas Industry?

Constructive Simulation is new to the Oil and Gas Industry.  Simulation and simulators of different types have been used for many years for a variety of uses, from production to reservoir visualization.  Constructive simulation is a different tool that has huge potential to change a number of facets of the energy industry, much the same as GIS technology has revolutionized how we record and present data.  Constructive Simulation brings a real-time, dynamic and visual tool into our tool bag that greatly improves the way we approach emergencies, safety and training.

Because we are talking about a new application of constructive simulation, let's review some of the basics.

What is Constructive Simulation?  Constructive simulation is a computer-based tool that allows one or more users to control a large number of “entities” within the simulation.  An entity can be a person, a vehicle or even a piece of equipment.  All of the entities interact within the simulation according to rules that are part of the simulation, itself.  Sounds complex?  Not really – once a scenario has been designed and built, much of this interaction is automatic and it occurs behind the scenes.  The people controlling the entities typically have simple on-screen menus to control their movement and interaction. 

I believe that Constructive Simulation could very successfully be applied in the following situations:

• Digital Safety Training Briefings
• Emergency Response Plan Preparation 
• Emergency Response Plan Validation
• Integration with Existing GIS Products
• Incident Command Training
• Replacement or augmentation of tabletop exercises

I will discuss each of these applications in turn, but for today, I will cover just the first one.

Digital Safety Training Briefings

The aim of a safety briefing is for people to understand their role during an emergency so that they will know what to do and instinctively do it.  If people have to understand what to do during a dynamic situation, why use static tools like a Word document or PowerPoint?  Let’s face it – people often have a hard time reading a static document and then applying what they learned in real-life.  Why not use a dynamic, visual tool that will show people in real-time what they are supposed to do? 

The airplane safety videos do a good job of showing a dynamic safety briefing – Constructive Simulation can do the same thing for the energy industry, except on a much larger scale and with a greater degree of complexity.   Imagine being able to conduct a safety briefing using a dynamic tool that allowed you to walk a group of trainees through a complex event with a simple-to-understand and visual tool.  Imagine being able to show the trainees what they needed to do – from any perspective, fully controllable in real-time.  All of this is possible with a good constructive simulation. Imagine being able to re-run the scenario quickly and easily, showing different possibilities and contingencies.

Why not extend the capabilities of the safety briefing?  You could create your own constructive simulation-based safety videos that can be placed on your web site that would be playable by anyone.  Workers could use these briefing videos to improve their safety knowledge before being assigned to a new area and the energy company could monitor access to ensure that employees watched the video as part of their safety indoctrination.

If you use your imagination you can quickly see that Constructive Simulation has the potential to greatly improve safety briefings - even to the point of holding a small simulation exercise at the end of the briefing to ensure that the employees (managing their own "entities") can confidently and successfully do what they are supposed to do in an emergency.  Imagine being able to play the safety briefing/exercise with any type of emergency and switch to new emergencies in a couple of minutes to give the trainees a realistic training indoctrination in multiple environments.  Imagine the knowledge that the employees could have by DOING instead of just reading or listening.

In the next blog I will tackle the subject of emergency response plans.

Keep training!

Bruce

Why Simulation is Important for Emergency Responders

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Calling all Emergency Operations Center (EOC) staff...

When was the last time you had a good exercise that tested your abilities? Was the exercise realistic? What did you learn?

I have seen a number of "bad" exercises. Some of the worst have been tabletop exercises where the participants drink their own "bathwater". Everyone gathers around a table, discusses a scenario, nods their heads for a while and goes home...what does that have to do with reality? I think everyone knows that emergency events fall into two categories - the "USUAL" where it happens every day and people are quite comfortable about dealing with them and "UNUSUAL" where the "fit hits the sham".

Unusual events seem to have these characteristics:

• Multi-agency response
• Large risk to life
• Cross-jurisdictional
• High potential for loss
• Outside of "normal" response

So how do we train for these types of events? Everyone is busy, time is at a premium and the "day job" simply gets in the way. So we set aside time to conduct an exercise. As discussed above, an exercise needs to be easy to run, not cost a lot, bring REAL value to the training and not take a lot of time.

Live exercises are good, but they cost a lot, take a lot of time and you can't run them realistically because there are limits to what you can do in training. I think that live exercises alway need to be run, but perhaps only occasionally (once every other year) to PROVE that everyone knows their job during unusual events.

Tabletop exercises are cheap and easy to run, but provide poor training. Sure it is better than nothing, but no-one is ever certain that the decisions that are agreed upon around the table are the right decisions. We rely on subject matter experts who attend the tabletop to tell us that the decisions we made were right...but they don't really know, other than through their experience, which won't cover every situation.

If we look next door at the military, they train all the time with simulation tools and have been doing so for years. Here is why they use simulation:

• Live exercises cost too much and are hard to run
• Tabletop exercises don't provide quality training
• Simulation gives training flexibility to practice nearly any eventuality
• Good simulation tools teach good lessons

Any of this sound familiar? So why is it that the Emergency Response/Public Safety is slow to embrace these technologies. I think we believe we are too busy doing the "USUAL" to worry about the "UNUSUAL", and that if we talk about the "UNUSUAL" once a year or so at a tabletop, that is "good enough".

The problem is that the UNUSUAL always comes back to bite you, and the bite may include loss of life, loss of property, slow response or ineffective response. Look at the hatred that British Petroleum (BP) has garnered in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. They were just doing the USUAL - they had a cut and paste emergency response plan, they went through the motions, attended the safety briefings, etc.. The problem is that the public demands better...for the same price...without spending any extra time.

How do we do more with the same resources? CONSTRUCTIVE SIMULATION may be part of that solution.

Constructive Simulation is different from first person simulators where you look at the computer screen and see the world in 3D. Instead, you typically see a top-down map of the area and vehicles and persons responding to the event, just like a 911 operator with a map.

Constructive simulations usually allow you to run events that are much more complex and difficult than a live event...AND they provide feedback for decision makers. If someone wants to move fire trucks from a mutual aid partner to the disaster location, these trucks take the same amount of time to move from X to Y as the real trucks. Miracles don't happen. Responses get tested and feedback is provided so that everyone can learn from their mistakes.

Constructive simulations aren't perfect - a computer program is not going to solve all of your emergency response issues. All constructive simulation will do is take a group of effective individuals and their equipment and teach them to work more effectively as a team.

In the next bog, I will describe how a constructive exercise works...

Look forward to your comments!

Bruce

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• presentation (slideshare.net)