Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling: Lessons for Future Operations Managers

Project Management
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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References..................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Operational failures occur in several organizations across all the industries. The operational
failures have consequences of minor inconveniences to some of the major catastrophes. One
of such catastrophe was the Gulf Oil Disaster. On April 20, 2010 an explosion tore in the
Deepwater Horizon drilling. Once the drilling of Macondo well deep under the waters was
completed the economic, human, and the environmental disaster began (Wolf & Mejri, 2013).
The explosion led to the death of 11 crew members along with severely injuring others. The
disaster had its scope over the week as the four million barrels of oil was gushed
uncontrollably along with threatening the precious habitats and livelihoods of the people. The
case of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling offers number of lesions for the
future operations managers that can be used for preventing such disasters. (National
Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon , 2011).
This report will focus on understanding the important concepts and theories such as the
organisational structures, culture, engineering risk, risk management, systems engineering
with the help of Deepwater Horizon oil spill and drilling case. The investigation report of the
disaster indicated that this disaster was preventable if progressive guidelines and practices
were followed.
Discussion
Systems engineering
System engineering is one of the effective approaches that help in realizing successful
systems. It is a robust approach that is used for creating, designing and operating the system.
System engineering can also be termed as the collaborative approach when number of
disciplines is working together. The Macondo well project was one such project that involved
number of disciplines (Aronson, 2017). This project involved a system thinking that can be
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referred to as a holistic approach in different parts of the system work together to achieve the
overall objective of the project. There are seven major parts involved in the system
engineering. These seven parts are discussed below:
Source: (Sebokwiki, 2017)
In order to ensure that a system works efficiently it is essential for all of its parts to work in
coordination towards the actual goal. In this case of Macondo well project there was an
absolute failure oaf system thinking model. This is because each of the parts of the system
was working is a different direction.
The organization structure can be defined as the activities associated with the activities
such as the coordination, task allocation and the supervision that are directed towards an
organizational objective. Organizations now need to be flexible, innovative and efficient
enough so as to operate effectively in a complex environment along with achieving a
competitive advantage. There are number of theories associated with the organizational
structures such as Neoclassical Organization Theory, classical organization theory and the
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