According to the brain trust in Hollywood, Roman gladiators used to greet their emperor by chanting, "We, who are about to die, salute you!" This begs the question, "Who wants to be first?"
Ever since they released the John Wayne epic film, "Hell Fighters," Hollywood has managed to misrepresent our industry one way or another. Perhaps we'll get some small payback by stealing the title of another blockbuster for this month's column. However, despite the cheap attempt at borrowed interest, this is serious business.
Each new rig design features an increasing variety of robots that tirelessly perform repetitive tasks with accuracy and reliability. Iron roughnecks, automatic pipehandling equipment, automatic slips, smart drawworks and so on - all are designed to make the drill floor a more efficient and safer place. But an ongoing study by the Athens Group, working under DEA 159 provides some grim warnings.
"Most of these new tools claim to have 'Plug n' Play' capabilities," explained Athens' Chief Technology Officer Don Shafer. "But all-to-often, the reality falls short." Getting complementary machines to work together as a system is not a new idea. Automobile assembly lines have done it for years. But in many cases the downside of failure there is limited to a few minutes of re-boot time. On a drilling rig floor, with titanic machines moving multiton loads, sometimes on a floater that is heaving and pitching with each wave, an incompatibility between these titans could result in a multimillion dollar loss, or worse, a fatality.
The purpose of DEA 159 is to analyze the problems presented by a disparate assembly of rig floor robotic devices and ensure that they do, in fact, work properly together. An obvious solution, according to Shafer, is to perform a complete systems test. But this is easier said than done. The situational combinations of possibilities expand exponentially as each new item is added. Even if the installer performs a systems check, are all possibilities covered? A couple of real examples provided by Shafer illustrate the danger:
• Systems have crashed because some Europeans use commas (,) in place of decimal points in program notation. Thus 21,250 lb becomes 21.25 lb when translated - a discrepancy of more than 10 tons.
• One company decided to modify its equipment to pause a few seconds to squirt a shot of lube onto a drawworks gear train before loading it up. Perhaps a good idea, taken by itself, but as a result several tons of tubulars supported by a complementary machine were allowed to free-fall.
• The driller's console on one rig had its joystick button programmed to operate the power slips, but on a sister rig of the same contractor, the button controlled the automatic drawworks limit switch.
These problems could be very serious and could easily precipitate a major accident, including loss of life, Shafer maintains.
There is no question that the concept of using robots to do the heavy lifting on the rig floor is a good one. It stands to reason that when workers are removed from stabbing boards, pipe racks and other high hazard areas fewer accidents will occur. But if one accepts the benefit of these time- and labor-saving machines, one must also accept the responsibility to ensure they work perfectly together, even if they come from different manufacturers. The objective of DEA 159 is to build a generic equipment module (GEM) that will integrate the functionalities of each machine so they will not work except by design. For example the module will not allow a technician, no matter how well meaning, to alter a program or function of a machine in the system without running a full system compatibility check.
Airlines have been addressing this problem for years. Before taking off, pilots meticulously pre-flight their aircraft, performing visual checks as well as following detailed instrument and control tests. Pilots must be "transitioned" with several hours on a simulator and more hours flying as "co-pilot" before they are qualified to fly a different type aircraft.
This type training may be impractical in our industry, explained Shafer. The GEM is intended to eliminate the opportunity for human error to affect the performance of automatic rig equipment. But it reminds me of an admonition I got from my third-year machine design professor, "No one can make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious."
Let's hope that DEA 159 achieves its objectives, so the "Clash of the Titans" never runs in your theatre of operations. No matter what those gladiators said, no one wanted to be first.

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