Missing focus on Human Factors – organizational and cognitive ergonomics – in the safety management for the petroleum industry

The development and use of new technology is like a ‘double-edged sword’; it has changed and increased production but also increased the complexity of systems and organizations. Technology innovation is sometimes slanted towards technology aspects, and human factors such as ease of use, organizational and cognitive issues are marginalized. There is a need to discuss why this has happened and how to mitigate this technology slant to support a more balanced collaboration between technology/automation and human factors. The paper present an innovative exploratory study of the development of four control centers in Norwegian oil and gas industry.