H E A LT H , S A F E T Y, E N V I R O N M E N T & T R A I N I N G
there’s none of the noise or interference
between wireless units that we’ve experi-
enced with the wearables,” he said.
The zone management system was not
designed exclusively for dropped objects,
but it can be used to keep people out
of harm’s way during activities where
dropped object risk may be higher than
normal. However, this requires drillers to
have a solid understanding of the dropped
object risks on the rig.
“If a driller knows they’re moving into
pipe tripping operations or whatever it
may be, he knows he’s got two or three
guys that may need to be out there, and
other than that no one else needs to be on
the drill floor,” Mr Flores said. “He can set
an active exclusion zone, and if anybody
goes in and out who shouldn’t be there,
we’ll catch it. And then when we do need
to turn the zone off, he can just discon-
nect it.”
The zone management technology is
effectively meant to help influence behav-
iors, Mr Flores said. Users can monitor
exclusion zone entries with a number of
parameters to better identify gaps in pro-
cedures. Each barrier break is then logged
with a date and time stamp, as well as the
exact location. Reports can be generated
IADC FSC Systems’ zone management system uses infrared sensors to place barriers at
various points along a rig floor. Drillers can combine sensor locations to create a
barriers around an exclusion zone where dropped object risk is prevalent, said
Brennan Flores, Petroleum Engineer at FSC.
from this data so that patterns and trends
can be drawn for future improvement.
“It we catch a particular area of trouble
during a specific operation, you can look at
your procedures and see if you have some
room for improvement,” he said. “Can we
change the way this area is laid out? Can
we change something during this opera-
tion to avoid having these continual bar-
rier breaks? The patterns and trends you
see from this can help with that.” DC
Scan me to access the
metric and imperial
versions of the DROPS
Calculator. bit.ly/3wpCimu
Drilling Onshore
3/4 C C O O N N F F E E R R E E N N C C E E
18 MAY 2023
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iadcconferences@iadc.org D R I LLI N G CO N T R ACTO R • JAN UARY/FEB RUARY 2023
41