Plant Integrity Management’s (PIM’s) second annual integrity management event took place on March 28 at the Carmelite Hotel, Aberdeen.
Entitled “Risk: strategy rather than chance”’ the popular conference attracted around 80 delegates from across the oil and gas industry including representatives from
oilfield service companies, operators and industry bodies.
Risk and integrity management were at the heart of PIM’s event and eight presentations brought these subjects under the spotlight and
reinvigorated the conversation.
Speaking about the event’s success, Steven Plant, PIM’s managing director, said: “We wanted to encourage engagement and collaboration between the supply chain, operators and industry bodies.
“Our aim was to provide a forum for debate and networking and we definitely achieved that.
“It was great to see so many people getting involved in the conversation on risk and integrity management. We can only make changes to the way the industry operates if we are prepared to take the first step and acknowledge the issues that we, as an industry, are facing.
“This was evident in the response to Paul Michael’s talk on quality.
“One delegate highlighted the industry’s tendency to treat health and safety as a single item which, in reality, just deals with safety.
“There was general agreement in the room that the industry is overlooking its responsibility for the health of those working in it and that in many cases employees are overloaded, which can be detrimental to their own health.”
Discussion and debate followed each group of presentations.
Those in the room agreed on the need to ensure the effective communication of risk as well as the need to ensure quality is not compromised and receives a
greater focus.
Steven explained: “The day started with a less conventional look at risk, incorporating challenging conventional wisdoms and shark wrestling, and finished by looking to the future and considering the digital evolution of integrity.
“Along the way we used industry feedback to illustrate what the oil and gas industry expects from integrity management and then considered the risk matrix in this context.
“Following on from this we looked at the roles that communication and culture play as well as questioning why quality tends to be given less emphasis in the industry than health, safety and environment.
“This cross section of subjects all linked back to risk and integrity management, meaning our speakers delivered a broad spectrum of
material to our audience.
“Attendance at our event was up 65% on last year, which is testament to the reputation that it has already started to develop. Plans are already in the pipeline to make PIM Event 2020 even better.”
