Drilling’s Failures – Life’s Built-in Advisor

I am a drilling consultant supervisor, engineer and trainer of Drilling people, yet more importantly an empathetic observer of those caught on today’s drilling merry-go-round that is accelerating and spinning faster. I am duty-bound, to remind people of what shall result if changes are not made: i.e. we’re simply heading for further disasters. This feature attempts to articulate the state things that fail as they exist today, it should also be read as a warning.  The phenomena of failure are surely one of our working life’s most significant experiences e.g.

“Failure is the only phenomena in our existence capable of getting our attention when we are “too busy” doing other things. Nothing else can snatch us away from the grasp of our own objectives, desires, and goals and force us to look at the MOST IMPORTANT facets of life ….. anonymous”

Drilling’s and well’s failures results when several small early danger and warning signs are missed before the larger and more consequential events then result (the majority result in the evident fact that no one gets hurt. E.g. UK HSE state 95-97% of accidents are non-injurious!).

When we taught our children and/or grandchildren rights and wrongs as infants, when we were told “no” if we didn’t listen, the tone of the adult voice became threatening. If we still didn’t listen, we were likely to get our butts reallocated to a safer area. If we still didn’t listen, then after a few safety shifts, our parents then turned to a technique with intent to inflict pain e.g. we were sent to our bedrooms, isolated, or today denied use of the i-pad etc, if we were lucky. Through good parenting we discovered methods that worked for our different children and the different situations, conditions and environments to generally avoided physical pain but attempting to develop, translate, sustain and change a person’s behaviour, culture and attitude.  Remember, People shall only change because they want to, and because they see it as the right and proper thing to do.

Drilling and other Industrial failures occur in exactly the same manner, almost as if it were the same persons, trying in increasing desperation to tell us something, i.e. that they want to change. But in today’s working environments, we often think or we don’t take or have the time to listen to these small voices of failure, i.e. …the ONLY way to survive often viewed by addressing the largest problems to their shallowest depth.

What then result is that the small drilling problems and failures are therefore generally discounted or ignored, supposedly by necessity? What now results if we had been properly taught to listen in the first place, is that “failures” too often “speak” louder, and louder, and louder until final and sufficiently pain within drilling operational activities forces us to pay serious attention e.g. we miss the geological target, we go way over budget, a stuck pipe event, backream as a matter of course vs a matter of purpose, loss circulation, equipment failure, major process or systems malfunctions result etc.

Even then, we generally are required to do as little as possible, we look for the first person to blame, where majority of organisations address these now far larger problems to their shallowest depth. Do we Ponder? Deliberate? Pursue? These elusive most important facets of why things have failed? Generally from my personal experience, Not a chance, Reasons Being? Non-compliance, lack of enforcement or no incentive requirement or hitting sound proof walls that simply do not want to listen or discuss all early precursors to failure etc..

As failure is not being evidently “heard,” it shall continue to “escalate and raise its voice.” We decide NOT to pursue the elusive issues to all physical, parts, people, paper and latent evident factors of failure that will probably result in much larger and far more consequential situational or conditional event failures in the future.

Failure MUST be heard – they MUST be understood. If not disaster is rest assured lurking within organization’s unwilling to correct such priority? Unfortunately, majority organizations are not listening that well and therefore currently incapable of “hearing” failures heading their way. Despite what the company policy QHSE mandate states. As like many they are on “on the merry-go-round” unable to recognize what is evidently wrong, Failures.

Those of us NOT tied to particular organizations also seem to be saying the same thing. We sense that the INTENT of most people’s investigative efforts to the failures we encounter is not what they must be.

E.g. Investigative Recognition and Analysis should have learning rather than fixing (or blaming) as its goal. Failures should not be approached with the expectation of finding singular “root causes” or finger pointing to the problem, nor is there a “single solution” to problems. Instead, a modern investigative approach should become an OCCASION TO RECOGNISE, ANALYSE, IDENTIFY AND DISCUSS ISSUES, to encourage new insights, and to determine and evaluate the corrective possibilities for better behavioural and attitude changes to benefit the consequences of such change.

More than anyone else, it’s up to ourselves as leaders and supervisors (note: who should be suitably skilled ad ‘trained as investigators’) to be empowered and developed to aid people to explore the unfathomable, unexplored depths to ALL physical, parts, people, paper factors and latent causes of evident failures.

But don’t wait for management to kick start this initiative or to tell you to take your time! As they have the biggest STAKE in the merry-go-round – they are the ones rewarded for increasing its speed (i.e. for doing more and more with less and less) despite all the failures and counter productivity that too evidently and far too often results.

“As part of leadership teams, let me tell you that safety, efficiency and effective drilling operations is only one of the MANY initiatives we are being FORCED to juggle. And it is not even CLOSE to being the number one initiative. With that kind of emphasis, do you really think I am going to devote much TIME to INVESTIGATIVE Analysis?” … Drilling Manager.

Best advice when leading people in an investigation is to SLOW THEM DOWN, help them to discuss and debate all the difficult issues to failure that lurk below the surface, IN SPITE OF ANYONE’S OBJECTION. In the end, you will be appreciated and rewarded for your persistence, even by the type of Drilling manager who stated the above.