Sarah Pickett

Small Business, Big Impact

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The revitalization of our blog will discuss how, as a small business, we have been able to make a big impact.

Did you know that small businesses make up most of the American economy? In fact, more than 99% of U.S. businesses are small businesses!

This means that Procedure Solutions Management is part of the majority of the businesses in the U.S. While we may be considered “small,” this also means that we can make a big impact.

As a small company, we provide our training and consulting services to some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. These services have helped ensure the safety of thousands of staff members and industry-leading businesses. Our most significant impact has been helping them have a more human-factored perspective that supports greater safety awareness in their daily operations and maintenance activities.

We have also taught over 20,000 procedure writers and reviewers how to become more human performance focused. Our training helps them correct the bad habits that they’ve fallen into while earning their PPA Procedure Writer Certification in the process.

In addition to this, we have spent the past 14 years providing staffing support to companies looking to create a much safer work environment for themselves and their colleagues.

Because we’re proud to be a small business with a big impact, we want to share some of our tips and tricks with you through the revitalization of our PSM Blog!

Each month we will have a guest writer from our team share knowledge on what they’ve learned throughout their career and at PSM. We will also spotlight our talented contract employees who will discuss life at PSM and their steps to becoming improved human performance focused writers.

We’re incredibly excited to share with you what we’ve learned in our 14-year journey!

Stay tuned for more updates, and please let us know if there are any topics you would like us to discuss!

By Sarah Pickett, Marketing Coordinator

If you like our content, subscribe to our blog using the link to the right of this post. Or, visit our services page for more information on our staffing, training, or consulting services.

Stephen McCord

Nuclear Promise – Procedure and Work Instruction’s Perfect Storm – Part 3

/0 Comments/in , /by

What are the real costs associated with maintaining thousands of documents required for the execution of operating and maintaining the plant?

Recap.

In part one, we voiced concerns regarding the nuclear industry’s “Nuclear Promise” and it’s negative impacts on procedures and work instructions.  These concerns were based on my experience working with nuclear sites across the country.  In short, procedures and work instructions that were successfully used many times over a number of years are, in many cases, no longer meeting the needs of the “new” qualified, but less experienced nuclear workforce. The primary findings focused on the areas of insufficient level-of-detail and usability issues (human performance errors).

In part two, we discussed writing staff, which have historically consisted of individuals dedicated to supporting procedure development and work planning.  These individuals are now being impacted by “Delivering the Nuclear Promise” through reorganizations, early retirements, and significant changes in the experience levels of the end user.

As a result of responses to efficiency bulletins associated with “Delivering the Nuclear Promise,” more staff are performing this work as a part-time collateral duty. In many cases, they have had very little or no training in human factored writing, and are unfamiliar with the station’s procedure and/or work package writing quality requirements. Even more frequently, we are finding staff lacking the experience needed to effectively use tools such as MS-Word.

Part 3.

In this final part, we will discuss considerations that should be evaluated in order to strengthen procedures and work instructions as a continued commitment to excellence in safety and reliability. The considerations are focused on the core goals of regaining or remaining competitive while executing this critical business function.

The most frequent response when dealing with the business function responsible for procedures is to reduce or eliminate positions and shift the procedure writing function to the line staff as a new collateral duty. This type of organizational change does see a near term or immediate budget reduction. However, it is particularly problematic because of the additional stress on existing procedures and work instructions caused by the aging workforce and the new staff taking their place This stress causes significant challenges to adequate level-of-detail and usability, or what is typically described as human performance issues.  Thus, the staff working on these critical documents are ill-prepared to support the increased demands created from the newer workforce in addition to their their existing responsibilities to maintain document back logs at or below industry benchmark levels.

So where do we go from here?

To develop a strategy that will realize true cost savings without jeopardizing safety, quality or creating human performance error-likely situations, staff should first understand the real costs associated with maintaining thousands of documents required for the execution of operating and maintaining the plant.

The true cost is not identified by looking at the existing head count and associated labor hours responsible for procedure creation and maintenance and then redirecting these labor hours to other work groups. Instead, look at the cost per page for a newly created or revised procedure. In order to determine the true costs the following questions should be evaluated:

  1. How much time does it take per page to create or revise a procedure? (Typically the labor hours range from .5 to.75 pages per hour for new and 1.4 to 1.6 pages per hour to revise.)
  2. When evaluating page counts per hour, current staff should be looked at individually to determine gaps in performance. When gaps are identified, are the tools or familiarity with the tools causing performance gaps identifying the need to look at the quality of the tools and/or training to improve performance and create greater consistency. For example, some plants will use a fillable form when writing procedures, generating a significant amount of manual actions needed to create consistent documents. In contrast, other plants will utilize a macro-enabled MS-Word template that provides automated features to reduce the labor of formatting.
  3. Does the site have a Content and Format Procedure to provide consistent guidance when developing procedures? If yes, does this procedure align with the latest industry standard guidance found in PPA AP-907.005 Writer’s Manual? When consistent guidance is provided for the format and content development of a procedure than less creative input is used that can cause fluctuations in labor hours based on what is thought as best intentions.
  4. When enhancements to procedures or work instructions are requested, is a cost versus benefit performed? Is the actual cost and benefit truly understood or is every change request accepted independent of the cost?
  5. If staff manual actions to create job steps in the text editor areas of Passport, Maximo, SAP etc. has historically been the norm, has any consideration been given to use a macro-enabled “automated” MS- Word template and create the instructions in MS-Word and place as an OLE document in order to minimize the labor expense?
  6. Has the technical review process for procedures or work instructions been evaluated for the cost of performance in addition to compliance with quality requirements and/or gaps to industry standards? Once the cost is understood, are program efficiencies available that can be implemented to lower the cost and improve quality?

These are just a few of the many questions we use to help our customers in making sound business decisions in order to raise the quality of the work performed and a focus on lowering the overall costs. Do you know how much it actually costs to create or revise a procedure or work instruction – per page?

In conclusion, the ultimate goal should be to produce the highest quality product at the lowest reasonable cost. Are you making money or spending it because “this is the way we have always done it?” Are you focused on lowering the costs over the long term or just looking for a quick cost reduction now?

Procedure Solutions Management has the unique ability to help you see what you can’t see for yourself when evaluating measures that can be taken to drastically lower the costs for maintenance and upkeep of procedures and work instructions.

If you like our content, subscribe to our blog using the link to the right of this post. Or, visit our services page for more information on our staffing, training, or consulting services.

Stephen McCord

Nuclear Promise – Procedure and Work Instruction’s Perfect Storm – Part 2

/0 Comments/in , /by

Delivering the Nuclear Promise.  As the industry changes and old processes are streamlined, the level of detail and elimination of human performance errors in technical documents becomes even more critical.

Part 2 – Nuclear Promise – Procedure and Work Instruction’s Perfect Storm

In Part 1 – Nuclear Promise – Procedure and Work Instruction’s Perfect Storm, I raised a concern based on my observation of challenges with regards to procedure and work instruction quality. These quality challenges include (but are not limited to):  inconsistencies in level of detail resulting from staffing changes associated with the aging workforce and organizational and process changes resulting from executing efficiency bulletins associated with delivering the nuclear promise.

Procedures and Work Instructions are at a critical crossroads today. Impacts occurring from the aging workforce and implementation of efficiency bulletins supporting Delivery of the Nuclear Promise are impacting the availability of experienced/trained resources needed to keep thousands of procedures and work instructions up to date.

Preventing human performance errors in the field requires high quality “consistently developed” procedures and work instructions. For many years and in many cases today, the focus has been on technical adequacy and nuclear safety. As the industry has matured, it was identified that a technical and nuclear safety focus alone was not sufficient in preventing procedure and work instruction user human performance errors. Over time, it was discovered that the usability of a document can be even more of an error-likely situation than a stringent focus on technical adequacy. With support from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI),and Procedure Professionals Association (PPA) standards have been developed to create a human factored focus in order to eliminate negative trends the industry has experienced.

Through my interactions while traveling (consulting training, advising), I have observed several challenges that are very concerning:

  • The average years of experience of operations and maintenance staff is rapidly lowering.
  • Work instructions and procedures used many times previously are now resulting in stopped work as a result of insufficient detail.
  • Experienced staff that once pushed for instructions written at the “what-to-do” level of detail (in an effort ensure maximum flexibility) are now being replaced at a rapid rate with qualified yet inexperienced staff that demand a greater level of “how-to-do” detail.
  • Even supervisors, although qualified, often do not have the experience to answer in-field questions without referencing documentation that is frequently vague and interpretive.

In addition, requests for new or changes to procedures and work instructions are being sent to smaller numbers of procedure writers and planners and in many cases the upkeep of these documents has been handed back to the line staff and process owners as a collateral duty, second only to their primary job function.

These individuals, although they are technically qualified in their specific work discipline, often do not have:

  • Adequate computer skills (MS-Word). For example planners experienced in Passport, Maximo or SAP are being requested to write Level One work instructions in MS-Word. In some cases the staff is provided training on a company MS-Word Work Instruction template although the template training was insufficient as it was assumed the planners were proficient in MS-Word and many are not.
  • Adequate training with regards to content an format requirements.  Little or no training has been provided on a stations procedure and work instruction content and format requirements or in many cases no content and format requirements exist.
  • Human performance focus. No training or guidance has been provided that focuses the procedure writers and planners on the elimination of human performance error-likely situations. Too often the staff finds what looks like a well written document and they make it look like that, creating issues where human performance errors are carried forward.

In conclusion, the writing of procedures and work instructions is a critical job, not one intended to be performed as a collateral duty. This is, perhaps, even more pertinent today than it has been in the past.  Eliminating human performance errors requires consistency in document development. When untrained staff is tasked with document development as a collateral duty or a reduced number of existing staff are taxed with more work than they can reasonably perform, document quality will suffer and human performance errors will occur.

As the industry is changing and old “bloated” processes need to be streamlined and the level of detail and elimination of human performance errors in technical documents becomes even more critical, we must recognize the need for consistency in document development. Achieving the level of consistency needed to prevent human performance errors requires the qualification and support of trained dedicated procedure writers and planners.

Join us for an additional discussion of this issue in Part 3 – Nuclear Promise – Procedure and Work Instruction’s Perfect Storm. This final segment will focus on suggestions and creative ideas supported by existing industry guidance on how to eliminate the risk of human performance errors in procedures and work instructions in support of Delivering the Nuclear Promise.

If you like our content, subscribe to our blog using the link to the right of this post. Or, visit our services page for more information on our staffing, training, or consulting services.

Procedure Solutions Management: Video Training Series: Ask An Expert
James Bennett

Ask An Expert – What do you mean by, “Human Factored”

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Procedure Solutions Management: Video Training Series: Ask An Expert

Procedure Solutions Management – Ask An Expert – What do you mean by, Human Factored?

 

 Ask An Expert – Episode 2 – What do you mean by, “Human Factored”?

Procedures have been around for a long time and there has been a lot of emphasis on making sure that they were “technically correct”.  As things have evolved and the workforce has changed, industries have come to realize that the way in which end users read/follow the procedures is just as important as making sure the content is accurate.  But, what does that really mean and how is it achieved?  Does it matter where a warning is inserted?  How does “Human Factored” affect the end user?

In this segment of “Ask An Expert,” our Founder and Chairman of the Board, Stephen McCord, answers the question, “What do you mean by, Human Factored?”

 

For more information on Technical Writing, subscribe to our blog using the link to the right of this post.  Or, visit our services page for more information on our staffing, training, or consulting services.