Integrating Human Factors into Petroleum Engineering's Curriculum: Essential Training for Students

Abstract

Abstract The contribution of Human Factors, in complex commercial and contractual environments like the oil and gas industry, is fully-fledged and admitted. With the understanding that there were cascading failures due to human errors, the root cause analysis of accidents reveals that many of them were preventable. The Human Factors has not been accentuated thoroughly in this industry, and, traditionally, the focus has been on personnel knowledge and competence. In addition, lack of emphasis on Human Factors in academia as a backbone of the industry could be another reason for this negligence. Therefore, the proper academic training, which thoroughly emphasizes the non-technical skills (NTSs) in conjunction with Human Factors, is lacking in the curriculum of complex engineering programs like petroleum. For the first time, at the University of Oklahoma, the Human Factors in Oil and Gas Operations class was offered. The offered course fulfilled the mission of training petroleum engineering students to make an impact on oil and gas industry. In this class, the students were introduced to the required NTSs in the drilling operation. The course content was designed to include technical concepts in drilling such as well barriers' philosophy, challenges in well flow control, plugging and abandonment operation, and kick detection. Also, several NTSs include effective communication, decision-making, situational awareness, teamwork, individual and group scenarios based well control training. The course content reassures that young professionals gain applicable NTSs and carry them to their work environment asserting safe and environmentally sustainable operations. A novel training approach was offered to integrate the theories of Human Factors with NTSs through the virtual reality simulation experience. The state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Drilling Simulator (VRDS) facility coupled with a commercial drilling simulation software to facilitate the scenario-based training for students.