Fire Safety Effect on the Oil Spills - Literature review Example

Name Institution Lecturer Course Date Fire Safety Effect on the Oil Spills An effective determination of an appropriate fire safety strategy with respect to oil spills requires acquiring knowledge on oil spills including sources or causes of oil spills, currently used fire strategies and their effectiveness and other relevant issues. This literature review seeks to bring to light available facts about oil spills and associated fire safety. Oil spills pose a major threat to the environment and safety of people and animals especially if such spills are exposed to open fire, which calls for effective risk management strategies. At the most basic level of an oil spill risk management strategy is the avoidance of error or the prevention of oil spill. Studies on oil spills show that oil tanker related accidents contribute to the largest incidents of oil spills followed by blow outs (Kurtz 2). According to Kurtz (2), oil passes through a highly complex organizational network from the time it is extracted to the time it is used. It is usually transported via several hands and processes. Every step in the complex process has errors and system breakdown that present opportunities for oil spills. Therefore, Kurtz (2-15) recommends an organizational network view when addressing the issue of oil spills in the effort to prevent oil spills. On the contrary, organizational networks and associated operations are becoming more complex making it more difficult to have an organizational network approach to spill prevention and risk management (Schulman et al. 16). Consequently, this calls for a narrower approach to spill prevention. A narrower approach means addressing every step in the process individually to identify associated spill risks and address them appropriately. The application of this spill prevention strategy is highly based on the assumption that each step in the process has unique spill risks. For instance, spill risks during oil transport are different from spill risks during oil storage. Therefore, this approach appears to be more feasible than the wider, organizational network approach. The individualized approach appears to give a more specific remedy than the organizational network approach. Training for reliability Training provides an opportunity to understand fire safety issues associated with oil spills in order to come up with appropriate and effective risk management strategies. Kurtz (2) argues that during training, employees and other relevant people practice response strategies and develop the required response tendencies and patterns. During spill cases, these patterns and tendencies reappear, which aids in effective fire safety management. Crichton, Lauche and Flin (119) conclude that training on spill risks provides an excellent risk management approach as opposed to trial and error methods that are usually used after the occurrence of emergency and crises. Training serves two key roles in oil spill cases and associated risk management. Firstly, they provide the opportunity to understand the errors and spill risks associated with various steps of the oil supply chain. They also provide the opportunity to learn how to minimize such errors to minimize the occurrence of oil spills. Trainings also provide the opportunity to learn how to deal with oil spills in case they occur. This is very important because it gives employees confidence to handle oil spills in case they occur mainly because employees have a solid understanding of the situation at hand and they are assured that their interventions will solve the crisis as opposed to when employees do not know what to do and all they can do is engage in try and error method (Kurtz 475). More importantly is that knowing how to handle the crisis increases safety for the employees and other people around as opposed to error and trial methods that are often used when crises happen (Crichton, Lauche and Flin 122). Secondly, training creates an excellent opportunity for employees to engage in face-to-face communication that may not occur without training (Crichton, Lauche and Flin 121). Excellent communication enhances fire safety management in the case of oil spill. Indeed, corroborative effort towards crisis management in the case of oil spill is highly required (Kurtz 475), which will only be possible through effective communication that is in turn made possible through training. More so, the confidence that workers gain out of training enable them to communicate effectively with other players in fire safety management efforts in case of oil spills. Backup resources Lack of equipments and human resource to handle crises has been quoted as a major factor preventing successful safety management associated with oil spills (Kurtz 475). Timely mobilization of required resources has also been highlighted as a contributing factor to unsuccessful risk management (Kurtz 475). Training helps employees to know which equipments to use for each risk and how to use such equipment. Therefore, failure to provide required equipment after successful training is indeed contradicting because the personnel does not have necessary equipments yet is has all the knowledge on how to use relevant equipments. Organizational structure Organisational structure affects how operations with the organisation are carried out. Organisational structure also determines the flow of communication and command within the organisation, which in turn affects the efficiency with which an organization carries out its activities. Today’s organizations have shifted significantly from the traditional structural template that was hierarchical in nature (Crichton, Lauche and Flin 122). Nevertheless, organizational structure has been negatively quoted as acting as a barrier towards effective crisis management with high bureaucracies preventing rapid response and efficient resource mobilization during crises (Kurtz 482). In a study to determine the effectiveness associated with different organisational structures revealed found out that a team approach that is made up of the service provider and representatives from various departments or stakeholders is the most appropriate in times of crises (Crichton, Lauche and Flin 120). This is so because the line of command is simple and that every sector or stakeholder is represented, which makes it easy to make quick decisions that are required during crises (Crichton, Lauche and Flin 120). There are various such teams that have demonstrated high efficiency in dealing with crises situations. An example of such a team is wild land fire fighting planning and management team. The team is mandated with preventing wild land fires and fighting them in case they occur (National Interagency Fire Center). The team is comprised of a land manager who acts as the team leader and several state and federal agencies representatives that act as team members. Interagency teams have been formed to coordinate efforts towards dealing with and combating wild land fires and each team is given a particular geographic region to operate (National Interagency Fire Center). The small nature of the teams and the simplicity of the teams’ organizational structure enable the teams to handle fire cases effectively owing to ease of communication thereby facilitating easy resource mobilization and issuance of command and directions. Additionally, the flow of communication within the teams is multidirectional such that information can flow up-down, down-up and horizontally for high efficiency and effectiveness (Schulman et al. 281). In doing so, teams are able to deal with crises more effectively and efficiently than if information flows in the top-down direction only (from top management through the structure to employees). Further studies on appropriate approaches for crisis management found that a team approach is the most effective because it is associated with high levels of trust between participants (Schulman et al. 2005). Such trust is highly required in dealing with crises such as oil spills. Communication is vital for the team’s performance. Schulman et al (281) concludes that the use of common language across the team facilitates communication and helps in overcoming barrier associated with poor communication that may result to lack of understanding and conflict between participants thereby negatively affecting team operations. The authority to act is arguably the most important aspect of team operations that determines the ability of rapid response teams to act effectively. Kurtz (476) presents the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster as an example of how failing to give teams responsibility to act prevents a rapid response team from operating effectively in handling crises. Although the relevant identified the problem, its failure to respond to the crisis prevented successful prevention and management of the crisis, which resulted to the catastrophic event. According to Kurtz (476), “response is best explained in terms of mobilization”. If successful, mobilization is supposed to contain the crisis at hand, limit the impact of the oil spill crisis and clean up the mess caused by the crisis. In the case of oil spills and fire safety, effective mobilization is supposed to prevent the occurrence of fire after an oil spill, contain the fire in case it happens to minimise the damage caused by the fire and clean the mess caused by the oil spill fire. Then, if response is all about timely mobilization, Kurtz (476) argues that a team structure with ease flow of information is the best structure for a response team. Available literature on oil spills shows that poor response and communication structures are indeed factors that limit the ability of response teams to act efficiently. Kurtz (2003) presents a cases study of Exxon Valdez oil spill to demonstrate the factors that prevent effective and efficient mobilization process. The organization’s leadership structure, communication lines and resource mobilization structure was wholly blamed for the organization’s ineffectiveness particularly in dealing with crises (Kurtz 310-311). Crichton, Lauche and Flin (118) outline the desirable characteristics of a highly effective response and crisis management team: leadership that is able to establish operational rules, create goals and innovative strategies and make strategic decision while making the best structure for rapid response; staff that is trained, able and allowed to make street-level decisions on the ground without approval from leadership; and structure that identifies strategic and street-level decision making. A notable characteristic is the distinction between strategic decision-making and street-level decision-making and the ability for staff to make street-level decisions. Street-level decisions are decision concerning ground operations such as which equipment to use for a given situation and how to handle the situation. From the literature review, organizational structure seems to be the overall determiner of the effectiveness of response teams. It affects all other elements including communication, training, backup resources and mobilization. Works Cited Crichton, Margret., Lauche, K., & Flin, Rhona. “Incident command skills in the management of an oil industry drilling incident: A case study.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 3 (2005): 116–28. Kurtz, Rick S. “Coastal Oil Spill Preparedness and Response: The Morris J. Berman Incident.” Review of Policy Research, 25.5 (2008): 473-485. Kurtz, Rick S. Organizational culture, decision making, and integrity: The National Park Service and Exxon Valdez. Public Integrity, 5(2003): 306–317. National Interagency Fire Center. (2007). National Interagency Coordination Center. 2007. Web. November 3, 2013 Schulman, Paul., Roe, Emery., Van Eeten & De Bruijne. “High-reliability bandwidth management in large technical systems: Findings and implications of two case studies.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 15 (2005): 263–281. Schulman, Paul., Roe, Emery., Van Eeten & De Bruijne. “High reliability and the management of critical infrastructures.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 12 (2004): 14–28. Read More