National University of Singapore

Master of Science
Safety, Health & Environmental Technology
SH5203
Emergency Planning

Assignment 1: Literature Review

Incorporating Resilience into Business Continuity and

Emergency Management for the Petroleum and Process
Industry
by
Yeo Pu Zhong Oliver (A0042338L)

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CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 3
DEFINITIONS ........................................................................................................................... 4
CURRENT TRENDS ................................................................................................................ 5
CURRENT RESEARCH EFFORTS ......................................................................................... 6
FUTURE RESEARCH AREAS ................................................................................................ 9
CONCLUDING REMARKS ..................................................................................................... 9
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 10

Word Count (excluding Executive Summary): 2546 words.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This essay attempts to summarise current research efforts on the topic of resilience as it
relates to Business Continuity Management (BCM), Emergency Management (EM) and
Disaster Recovery (DR) in the petroleum and process industries.
The main challenges facing risk managers today are the increasingly complex operations,
new technologies and limited resources dedicated to BCM, EM and DR. These processes are
gradually being integrated into a single process, given that they are highly inter-dependent.
The concept of resilience has recently been proposed as a unifying factor in these processes;
however, there is insufficient academic progress to support and encourage widespread
adoption of the concept.
Several new ideas proposed in recent years seem promising in advancing the field of
resilience. Practitioners of resilience engineering (RE) have developed qualitative, semiquantitative and fully-quantitative methods for measuring organisational or process
resilience.
The paradigm shift introduced by RE includes core principles such as anticipation, awareness
and flexibility; established risk management strategies based on hindsight can be
complemented with foresight-based strategies to improve organisational resilience.

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INTRODUCTION
The petroleum and process industry is an essential part of the modern industrial era. It
provides the world with fuel and hydrocarbon-based products, and produces the feedstock for
many synthetic chemicals necessary for sustaining our civilisation.
There are inherently high risks associated with the industry. Huge inventories of hazardous
material can be released into the environment in the event of a mishap, often resulting in
disastrous consequences. The daily operation of a facility (be it an offshore drilling rig, a
refinery, or a petrochemical plant) requires many components to function at a satisfactory
level. These components can be independent, interconnected or interdependent; the resulting
system is a highly complex one with many uncertain parameters.
In addition to that, the industry faces many challenges in these times of increasing cost
pressures and diminishing margins; new technologies are constantly being explored and
implemented so as to improve the efficiencies of the equipment and productivities of the
workforce. This is especially true due to advances in Information and Communication
Technology (ICT). New work processes are being developed in the workplace to take
advantage of the capabilities of new ICT tools.
Being the pioneer and leader in the application of process management systems (PMS) and
safety management systems (SMS), there is a need for the industry to review its approach to
these management tools through cross-disciplinary perspectives. Business continuity
management (BCM) has been an established management tool in the Information Technology
(IT) sector; however, the domain for BCM remains in the IT group for many organisations
(Gibb, et al., 2006).
Intimately linked to BCM is Emergency Management (EM) and Disaster Recovery Plan
(DRP), which deal with separate time horizons in the event of an unplanned mishap. Several
researchers have proposed an integrated BCM, EM and DR framework (Sin, et al., 2013;
Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015; Zhang, et al., 2013) in an effort to streamline these processes and
facilitate sharing of resources.
The concept of resilience has been proposed as an important characteristic of a high-risk,
complex, dynamic and unstable system (Azadeh, et al., 2014; Costella, et al., 2009; Dinh, et
al., 2012; Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015; Tveiten, et al., 2012; Sin, et al., 2013; Huber, et al.,
2009; Shirali, et al., 2012). Resilience has been studied for many years in non-chemical
disciplines, such as biology, psychology, organisational science, computer science, and
ecology. In industrial processes, the concept remained relatively undeveloped (Dinh, et al.,
2012).
This essay attempts to summarise current research efforts on the topic of resilience as it
relates to BCM, EM and DR in the petroleum and process industries. It comprises of five
chapters: Introduction, Definitions, Current Trends, Current Research Efforts, and Future
Research Areas.

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DEFINITIONS
Business Continuity
Business continuity of an organisation refers to its ability to continue delivery of products or
services at a predefined level in the aftermath of a disruptive event (ISO 22301:2012).
Business Continuity Management (BCM) or Business Continuity Planning (BCP) are used to
refer to a process which identifies potential threats/risks and their impacts to business and
provides a framework for organisational resilience (ISO 22301:2012).
The objective of a business continuity plan is to resume disrupted Critical Operations (COs)
of an organization to the predefined operating levels as quickly and efficiently as possible
(Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015).
Emergency Management
Emergency Management (EM), or Emergency Planning, refers to a set of measures
(technical, operational and organisational) that are planned to be implemented under the
management of the emergency organisation in case hazardous or accidental situations occur,
in order to protect human and environmental resources and assets (NORSOK Standard Z013).
The objectives of an emergency plan are to contain and control incidents, to safeguard
employees and anyone nearby who might be affected, and to minimise damage to property or
the environment (Ramsay, 1999).
Disaster Recovery
The objective of a Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan is to restore all disrupted operations to their
normal operating levels following any disruptive events (Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015).
Resilience
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) provided a
broad definition of resilience as relevant to the topic of Disaster Risk Management (DRM):
The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist,
absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely
and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its
essential basic structures and functions (UNISAR, 20009).
In the context of BCM and EM for an organisation, resilience is a measure of its ability to
keep, or recover quickly to, a stable state, allowing it to continue operations during and after
a major mishap or in the presence of continuous significant stresses (Wreathall, 2006).
Resilience Engineering
Resilience Engineering (RE) refers to the field in engineering which focus on developing
inherent capacity within a system to cope with complex and unpredicted events (Shirali, et
al., 2011). It focuses on modelling and development of decision-support tools for the
practitioners (Robert, et al., 2013).

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CURRENT TRENDS
BCP and DRP
The consequences of poor BC and DR planning are loss of reputation, loss of market share,
customer service failure, business process failure, regulatory liability and increased
restoration time (Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015). This highlights the importance of having a robust
process for BC and DR planning, and points to incorporating the overall emergency
management process into a continuous improvement cycle using hazard and risk management
process (Tveiten, et al., 2012).
Sahebjamnia (2015) highlighted a concern that BCP and DRP are conducted separately and
for different time horizons within organisations. Indeed, efforts are put in to develop an
integrated framework for these management tools under a single umbrella which is risk
management (Sin, et al., 2013; Zhang, et al., 2013; Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015). The
researchers argue that BCP, DRP and EM are interlinked with each other; merging the
planners into a single group will synergise the process and improve resource allocation.
Integrated Operations (IO)
Tveiten (2012) described a series of changes that are happening on the Norwegian continental
shelf (NCS) offshore drilling industry. One of the significant developments as a result of
advances in ICT is the adoption of Integrated Operations (IO). IO broadly refers to new work
processes facilitated by digital infrastructure and information technology which allows multidiscipline collaboration in the operation of a facility. These work processes heavily involve
the use of data transfer between onshore support centres and offshore installations such as
video conference, real-time well monitoring, 3-D visualization, etc. Personnel can be shifted
onshore to support multiple offshore installations, improving efficiency and productivity of
the operations.
Distributed Actors
A direct consequence of IO is that in the event of an emergency, there is an increased number
of actors who are spread out geographically and have to work together to handle the
emergency situation (Tveiten, et al., 2012). It is critical to control the flow of information and
ensure that each actor has access to real-time data seamlessly. Paradoxically, even as process
adopts new ICT tools, there is a lack of use of these tools in the EM process (Tveiten, et al.,
2012).
Challenges in Incorporating Resilience
It is difficult to incorporate resilience into the process industry due to the fact that the theory
of resilience is still only conceptual (Dinh, et al., 2012). There is a need to identify basic
principles and contributing factors of resilience.
A related issue is that there is no established method of assessing resilience quantitatively.
This makes it difficult for risk managers to justify adoption of resilience principles and
incorporate the concept into their existing management systems.
The introduction of new technology creates new causes of failure. The managers of
organisational risk have to recognise that relying on hindsight cannot adequate address these
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new sources of risk; anticipation and foresight must become the new paradigm shift in risk
management and emergency planning (Shirali, et al., 2012; Tveiten, et al., 2012). A cyclical
process of reviewing and revising the BCM, EM and DR plans to account for these
technological changes is not widely practised.

CURRENT RESEARCH EFFORTS

Concept of Resilience
The concept of resilience is developed separately in multiple disciplines (such as sociology,
ecology, economics, etc.); there is no definitive consensus on the application of resilience
(MacAskill, et al., 2014). The definition of resilience depends on the application and
quantification approaches of the researchers (Dinh, et al., 2012). Resilience can be used to
describe an outcome, a state, a systems property, a physical property, a process, etc. It can
mean to return to the same state or the ability to transit between multiple states. Yet, vague as
it is, this diversity should be embraced (MacAskill, et al., 2014). MacAskill & Guthrie
proposed a conceptual framework to develop cross-disciplinary understanding of resilience in
Disaster Risk Management (DRM).

Resilience

Context
Scale

Chrono

Application
Societal

Perspective

Object

Figure 1 Conceptual framework for helping safety practitioners think about resilience (MacAskill, et
al., 2014)

This framework is useful for the petroleum and process industries as well. The context and
application of resilience change when different systems are being considered. For example,
the resilience of a chemical process plant can encompass a wide scale, from the safety
management system (SMS), the operational controls and procedures and the overall plant
design, down to individual equipment and components. The time horizon being considered
can include pre-disaster (prevention), during the disruptive event (mitigation and emergency
response) and post-disaster (recovery). Societal consideration, in this case, can refer to the
human factors of an emergency handling situation (Gomes, et al., 2014), and perhaps even
the resilience (emergency preparedness) of the surrounding communities (MacAskill, et al.,
2014).
Principles of Resilience
Several researchers have devoted efforts to identify the principles of resilience. There is no
consensus among current practitioners; each academic adopt a set of terminologies to define
his or her model (Costella, et al., 2009). Azadeh et al. (2014) summarized a list of principles
and prioritised them using the fuzzy cognitive mapping technique. This is a semi-quantitative
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method which helps practitioners assign priority and weight to RE factors. The result of the
study is presented in the figure below.

Most
Influential

Prepareness
Awareness
Flexibility
Fault-tolerant
Learning culture
Reporting culture
Management commitment

Least
Influential

Teawork
Redundancy

Figure 2 Principles of resilience engineering (RE) (Azadeh, et al., 2014)

Dinh et al. (2012) proposed a separate set of principles that are applicable to the process
industries. They cited contributing factors of resilience as Design, Detection Potential,
Emergency Response Plan, Human Factor and Safety Management.
Measuring Resilience
Costella et al. (2009) applied the process of auditing to assess the resilience of an
organisation. They make use of three approaches to auditing: structural, operational, and
performance. Structural auditing ensures that the documents in the HSE management system
(MS) are adequate and current. Operational auditing verifies that the procedures as
documented in the HSE MS are put into practice through interviews and observation of staff.
Performance auditing relies on the analysis of performance indicators to evaluate the progress
of the organisation. The advantage of this approach is that it can be easily aligned with
OHSAS 18001, given that resilience and safety management share many principles and
factors (Costella, et al., 2009).
Shirali et al. (2012) adopted a similar approach in their measurement of resilience. They
conducted surveys through direct observations and interviews, and concluded that the main
challenges of implementing RE into the process industry could be classified into nine
categories: lack of explicit experience about RE, intangibility of RE, choosing production
over safety, lack of reporting systems, religious beliefs, out-of-date procedures and
manuals, poor feedback loop, and economic constraints.
Another qualitative approach involves the use of a micro-incident analysis framework, which
was used to assess the resilience of a management system for a nuclear power plant (Gomes,
et al., 2014). This type of cognitive task analysis (CTA) technique helps to provide insights
into the cognitive aspect of an emergency handling situation and identify team coordination
and crisis management patterns (Gomes, et al., 2014).
A semi-quantitative approach, which is tightly linked to the auditing process, is the use of
performance indicators. Huber et al. (2009) proposed a framework to aid in the development
of indicators through a cyclical process. The steps involves: identifying resilience factors,

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proposing resilience indicators, assessing organizational resilience and finally assessing and
improving resilience indicators.
A quantitative method was proposed by Sahebjamnia et al. (2015). They defined resilience as
a function of loss of operating level after a disruptive event and the time it took for the
organisation to restore its operations to the normal level. This mathematical relation was then
used in a resource allocation model to optimize the resources required to cope with disruptive
events under an integrated framework of BC and DR. The advantages of the resource
allocation model is that it allows simultaneous development of BCP and DRP, allows
optimization of resource allocation and controls the losses of operating levels and restoration
times simultaneously. This study addressed the gap in devising decision support models for
an integrated BC and DR planning framework where other researches only focus on its
features (i.e. principles and factors).
Other quantitative methods include using experimental disturbances to assess resilience along
a known stress gradient (Slocum, et al., 2008) and using an exergy stress and strain curve to
track changes imparted onto a system (Mitchell, et al., 2006).
Distributed Actors Map
Traditionally, an emergency organisation chart is in the form of a hierarchical chart, with the
Incident Headquarters at the top and branching off into different actors in an emergency. In
the case of an offshore installation, the hierarchical approach breaks down as the number of
actors increase and becomes increasingly decentralised. A distributed actor map (figure
below) can provide a useful visualisation for all parties responding to an emergency situation
(Tveiten, et al., 2012). It can help to facilitate flow of information and create an awareness of
who should be involved and consulted in an emergency situation.

Figure 3 A distributed actor map from an emergency handling situation (Tveiten, et al., 2012)

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FUTURE RESEARCH AREAS

Conceptually, resilience and RE have reached a turning point. There appears to be consensus
among practitioners on the core principles of resilience and RE; however, there remains
varied use of terminologies. The cross-disciplinary conceptual framework proposed by
MacAskill & Guthrie (2014) has the potential to serve as the basis for future research on the
topic.
The field of RE requires more research in quantitative assessment of resilience; most of
previous academic pursuits targeted the qualitative and conceptual results. A numerical
method for assessing resilience can provide managers with a more useful tool and also instil
confidence in RE.
Future mathematical models of resilience should consider simultaneous or consecutive
multiple disruptive incidents, and also make use of uncertainty programming techniques due
to the inherent uncertainty in the models parameters (Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015).

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Resilience is a relatively new concept in the petroleum and process industry. Numerous
studies have shown that it is an important characteristic of a high-risk, complex and uncertain
system. The concept of resilience is intertwined with the objectives of business continuity,
emergency management and disaster recovery; however, it is not being explicitly recognised
as such. The paradigm shift introduced by resilience engineering includes core principles
such as anticipation, awareness and flexibility; established risk management strategies based
on hindsight can be complemented with foresight-based strategies to improve organisational
resilience. Researchers have made headways in identifying principles and contributing factors
of organisational resilience; current efforts are focused on establishing semi-quantitative and
quantitative methods for assessing it.

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REFERENCES
Azadeh A. [et al.] Assessment of resilience engineering factors in high-risk environments by fuzzy
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Costella M.F., Saurin T.A. and de Macedo Guimares L.B. A method for assessing health and safety
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Dinh L.T.T. [et al.] Resilience engineering of industrial process: Principles and contribution factors
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