Investigating the status of Management of Change from the perspective of HSE in East Azarbaijan Gas Company and presenting its promotion plan

Abstract

Introduction: Change in organizations and industries is an inevitable thing that is needed for the long-term excellence of organizations and keeping pace with other successful organizations and industries. Changes occur when existing processes do not meet requirements, rules and regulations change, equipment does not accord to design specifications and etc, Such changes, if not controlled, can lead to HSE risks and the possibility of increase the occurrence of catastrophic events.. Management of Change is a method of ensuring that health, safety and environmental risks are controlled when an organization makes changes. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the current state of management of change in the company, to identify the challenges in the way of establishing MOC and to provide solutions to solve the challenges. Methods: The current study, which is of a qualitative type, first examined the current situation of change management in the company by reviewing existing documents such as bylaws, guidelines, etc., and conducting semi-structured interviews. In the following, the challenges in the way of establishing MOC in the company were identified by conducting semi-structured interviews with managers and experts and data analysis using the content analysis method, After that, the identified challenges were prioritized using the prioritization matrix, so that based on the priorities of the challenges, their importance is determined and the proposed solutions are presented accordingly. Proposals were presented and discussed, and also at this stage, the existing implementation method in the company was reviewed and rewritten. Findings: Based on this study, it was determined that the management of change in the gas company of East Azarbaijan Province does not proceed according to the principles approved in the company and very low number of change request forms are issued that most of them do not go through the necessary steps to the end and in simple words, it can be said that management of change in the company is at standstill mode. By conducting interviews, total of 18 challenges were identified, which were classified into 5 categories (codes), and the main challenge according to the points obtained from the prioritization matrix was the challenge related to managers and supervisors with a score of 1145, after that, the organizational challenge with a score of 834 was determined as the second challenge in terms of importance and priority, Then, the challenge related to education, the challenge related to the HSE unit, and the MOC system challenge were the third to fifth challenges with scores of 804, 588, and 387, respectively. Based on the obtained priorities, suggested solutions to solve the challenges were presented and the company's management of change implementation method was reviewed and updated. Conclusion: From the findings of this research, it was concluded that even in large companies such as Gas Company, which have a good safety culture, there are challenges and problems in the way of establishing management of change, and some people still do not fully understand the benefits of HSE elements, which MOC is one of them. Some of them have not been reached, and these challenges were identified by conducting semi-structured interviews. As long as managers do not have a positive view of management of change, this system will not be implemented, and based on the prioritization matrix, the After that, organizational challenges, challenges related to education, challenges related to HSE unit and system challenges of MOC were ranked second, third, fourth and fifth respectively. Having a complete implementation method plays a significant role in the implementation of the change management system in organizations, and the clearer and simpler this method is written, the more applicable it will be.