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IN this issue there is a Letter to the Editor (page 42). Its author is D. A. Barron, Chief Work Study Engineer of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd., at Basildon. The letter is important from two aspects. Firstly, because it enables the writer of this column to clear up any misconceptions lingering in people's minds regarding references to Charles Bedaux in past editorials appearing in this journal.

The offshore supply vessel (OSV) industry is critical to offshore oil and gas operations around the world and contributes to the economic and ecological impacts experienced by the local communities supporting the offshore oil and gas industries. The OSV industry has not been studied significantly and the economic and ecological impacts to local communities is generally unknown. This paper aims to address these issues.

In this paper, the authors review the activities and logistical requirements involved in offshore exploration and development with special attention paid to workflows and the manner in which service vessels are utilized in the Gulf of Mexico. The authors estimate the OSV needs per stage of activity for offshore operations based on data collected from company planning documents, fleet utilization data from oil and gas companies and service providers, interviews and surveys. The statistical data is synthesized and reconciled and despite large variances the data sources are in reasonable agreement. Empirical data on circuit factors are also provided. The applications and limitations of the analyses are discussed.

In the US GOM, a large variety of marine vessels transport goods and provide services to exploration, development and production activity. OSVs provide a vital link between offshore E&P activities and shore‐based facilities. Offshore oil and gas operations cannot function without them and their utilization and spatial distribution provide a way of understanding the impacts of the offshore oil and gas industry on coastal communities.

This is the first empirical analysis of any offshore service vessel industry. The data presented here can be used to predict the environmental, economic, public health, and infrastructural consequences of alternative offshore development policies.

Annually, hundreds of drilling crew suffer from major injuries during performing oil and gas drilling operation because of the deficiency of an adequate hazard safety management system for real-time decision-making in hazardous conditions. According to previous studies, there is a sheer industrial need for an effective industrial safety management decision support system for accident prevention at oil and gas drilling sites at both drilling domains. Therefore, this paper aims to focus on the design and development of knowledge base decision support system (KBDSS) for the prevention of hazardous activities at Middle Eastern and South Asian origins’ onshore and offshore oil and gas industries during drilling operations.

In this study, data were gathered from safety and health professionals from targeted oil and gas industries in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan through quantitative and qualitative approaches. Based on identified data, KBDSSs (HAZFO Expert 1.0) were systematically developed and designed by adopting Database Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Software Development Life Cycle models. MySQL and Visual Studio 2015 software were used for developing and designing knowledge base and graphical user interface of the system.

KBDSS (HAZFO Expert 1.0) for accident prevention at onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling industries based on identified potential hazards and their suitable controlling measures aligned with international safety standards and regulations. HAZFO Expert 1.0 is a novel KBDSS that covers all onshore and offshore drilling operations with three and nine outputs, respectively, to achieve the current trend of Industry Revolution 4.0 and Industrial IoTs for workforce safety.

This industrial safety management system (HAZFO Expert 1.0) will be efficiently used for the identification and elimination of potential hazards associated with drilling activities at onshore and offshore drilling sites with an appropriate hazard controlling strategy.

Moreover, the developed KBDS system is unique in terms of its architecture and is dynamic in nature because it provides HAZFO Expert 1.0 data management and insertion application for authorized users. This is the first KBDSS which covers both drilling domains in Malaysian, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani industries.

Every year, hundreds of people have died and thousands have been injured because of insufficient management of well control at oil and gas drilling and production sites. Major causes which have been reported in previous studies included uncontrollable blowouts and failure of blowout preventers because of insufficient safety practices. These onshore and offshore blowout disasters not only harm the work force but also critically affect the environment and marine life. In this research paper, a detailed quantitative survey and qualitative risk assessments (RA) have been carried out for assessing the potentially hazardous activities associated with well control along with their appropriate controls and risk reduction factors and mitigating measures in Middle East and south East Asian countries.

The sequential explanatory research design has been adopted in this study. Whereas, descriptive statistical approach has been used for the quantitative data analysis of this study. While, in-depth interview approach has been used for qualitative data collection. Similarly, what-if analysis method has been adopted in this study for the identification of effective safety and health risk mitigating factors because it provides in-depth information from health and safety environment experts.

The cumulative quantitative results based on the response from Saudi Arabian drilling industry have indicated that the well control operation is highly hazardous then Malaysian and Pakistani oil and gas industries. Likewise, findings from what-if analysis approach demonstrate that the drilling crewmembers have repetitively faced life threatening hazards which occur (safety and chemical) during well control onshore and offshore operation because of oil base mud, confined space at site, pinch points and falling during working on blow out preventers. According to the overall result, respondents have highly recommended engineering and administrative hazard controlling factors as most suitable for the elimination of safety and chemical hazards during well control activities.

Besides, the developed methodological framework for the identification of suitable hazard controls can also be effectively used for potential hazards reorganization and identification of suitable hazard controls for other drilling and production industries and regions for accident prevention and safety and health management.

This is a first comparative research study which has been carried out in Malaysian, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani onshore and offshore oil and gas industries for well control health and safety management and reorganization of most effective hazards mitigating factors at drilling sites.

MORE cheering news about work study. In the Daily Express the following appeared: ‘Inflation has hit the State‐aided Remploy factories manned by wore than 6,000 disabled workers. But the workers of the 91 factories have wiped out—by increased efficiency—£124,000 of £271,000 rise in costs in the financial year up to the end of March.’

DRILLING, REAMING, COUNTERBORING, THREADBORING, ETC. THROUGHOUT the design of every machined part the designer should follow the practice of visualizing the machining involved, and make a genuine effort to design for “machinability” by avoiding all difficult operations. This factor cannot be over‐emphasized, as it is only too easy to complicate the machining of a part unnecessarily by lack of forethought during the design.

It is essential to level the drilling platform across which a drilling robot travels in a slant underground coal mine tunnel to ensure smooth operation of the drill rod. However, existing leveling methods do not provide dynamic performance under the drilling conditions of the underground coal mine. A four-point dynamic leveling algorithm is presented in this paper based on the platform attitude and support rod displacement (DLAAD). An experimental drilling robot demonstrates its dynamic leveling capability and ability to ensure smooth drill rod operations.

The attitude coordinate of the drilling robot is established according to its structure. A six-axis combined sensor is adopted to detect the platform attitude, thus revealing the three-axis Euler angles. The support rod displacement values are continuously detected by laser displacement sensors to obtain the displacement increment of each support rod as needed. The drilling robot is leveled according to the current support rod displacement and three-dimensional (3 D) attitude detected by the six-axis combined sensor dynamically.

Experimental results indicate that the DLAAD algorithm is correct and effectively levels the drilling platform dynamically. It can thus provide essential support in resolving drill rod sticking problems during actual underground coal mine drilling operations.

The DLAAD algorithm supports smooth drill rod operations in underground coal mines, which greatly enhances safety, reduces power consumption, and minimizes cost. The approach proposed here thus represents considerable benefits in terms of coal mine production and shows notable potential for application in similar fields.

The novel DLAAD algorithm and leveling control method are the key contributions of this work, they provide dynamical 3 D leveling and help to resolve drill rod sticking problems.

Drilling is the first process step in creating a plated‐through hole (PTH). The purpose of the PTH is for electrically interconnecting two or more circuit locations and/or providing a means for electrical and mechanical connection of components to the MLCB.

During drilling in coal mines, sticking of drill rod (referred to as SDR in this work) is a potential threat to underground safety. However, no practical measures to deter SDR have been developed yet. The purpose of this study is to develop an anti-SDR strategy using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and compliance control (PIDC). The proposed strategy is compatible with the drilling process currently used in underground coal mines using drill rigs. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the PIDC strategy for solving SDR.

A hydraulic circuit to reduce SDR was built based on a load-independent flow distribution system, a PID controller was designed to control the inlet hydraulic pressure of the rotation motor and a typical compliance control approach was adopted to control the feed force and displacement. Moreover, the weight and optimal combination of the alternative admittance control parameters for the feed cylinder were obtained by adopting the orthogonal experiment approach. Furthermore, a fuzzy admittance control approach was proposed to control the feed displacement. Experiments were conducted to test the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The experimental results indicated that the PIDC strategy was appropriate and effective for controlling the rotation motor and feed cylinder; thus, the proposed method significantly reduces the SDR during drilling operations in underground coal mines.

As the PIDC strategy solves the SDR problem in underground coal mines, it greatly improves the safety of coal mine operation and decreases the power cost. Consequently, it brings the considerable benefits of coal mine production and vast application prospects in other corresponding fields. Actual drilling conditions are difficult to accurately simulate in a laboratory; thus, for future work, drilling experiments can be conducted in actual underground coal mines.

The PIDC-based anti-SDR strategy proposed in this study satisfactorily controls the rotation motor and feed cylinder and facilitates the feed and rotation movements. Furthermore, the tangible novelty of this study results is that it improves the frequency response of the entire drilling system. The drilling process with PIDC decreased the occurrence of SDR by 50%; therefore, the anti-SDR strategy can significantly improve the safety and efficiency of underground coal mining.

This proposed research study aims to focus on the development and implementation of a new safety and health educational management information system (hazard-free production operation [HAZ-PRO]) based on effective hazards controlling factors and mitigating measures for safe onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling operation in Saudi Arabian, Malaysian and Pakistani industries. According to previous studies, there is a sheer industrial need of an effective management information system for decision-making to prevent life-threatening accidents at oil and gas production sites based on innovative hazard controlling strategies from different production origins. Similarly, that safety and health management information system will also enhance the decision-making skills of oil and gas production crew through effective accident prevention strategies.

In this study, 100 drilling crew are randomly selected for quantitative research phase. Similarly, 3 safety experts are purposively selected for qualitative research from each drilling domain from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan, whereas for the identification of hazard controlling measures, what-if analysis and thematic analysis approaches are adopted. Furthermore, the educational management information system (HAZ-PRO) for safety and health has been developed by using ADDIE Model based. Whereas, Visual Studio (2017) and MySQL software are used for the database and user interface development of the safety and health management information system for the safety and health of production crew.

This study proposes the research framework for the development and implementation of a new safety and health educational management information system (HAZ-PRO) based on identified effective hazard controls and mitigating measures in support of accident prevention and effective decision-making in hazardous events at Saudi Arabian and Pakistani onshore and offshore production domains. Whereas, this proposed safety and health management information system will assist and facilitate the safety professionals and production crew to prevent the injuries in hazardous work environments of onshore and offshore oil and gas industries according to international safety standards.

This safety and health management information system can be utilized by oil and gas industries (oil and gas production crew) in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan for accident prevention and suitable decision-making prior to the actual onshore and offshore operations. Also, the proposed system development framework will be useful as an effective source for the elimination of life-threatening drilling hazards associated with its activities in oil and gas industries. Similarly, the proposed framework can also be implemented in other oil and gas work-based accident prevention and effective decision-making designs.

This proposed safety and health management information system will be the first system for oil and gas production operation that covers all onshore and offshore operations for Saudi Arabian, Malaysian and Pakistani oil and gas industrial settings. Also, the system development methodology and design framework, which will be used, is novel and unique based on their characteristics and functionalities.