Process Safety

Key Concepts and Practical Approaches

James A. Klein, Bruce K. Vaughen

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367736170
• eBook ISBN: 9781351645478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Industrial & Technical Chemistry

Effective process safety programs consist of three interrelated foundations—safety culture and leadership, process safety systems, and operational discipline—designed to prevent serious injuries and incidents resulting from toxic releases, fires, explosions, and uncontrolled reactions. Each of these foundations is important and one missing element can cause poor process safety performance.

Process Safety: Key Concepts and Practical Approaches takes a systemic approach to the traditional process safety elements that have been identified for effective process safety programs. More effective process safety risk reduction efforts are achieved when these process safety systems, based on desired activities and results rather than by specific elements, are integrated and organized in a systems framework. This book provides key concepts, practical approaches, and tools for establishing and maintaining effective process safety programs to successfully identify, evaluate, and manage process hazards.

It introduces process safety systems in a way that helps readers understand the purpose, design, and everyday use of overall process safety system requirements. Understanding what the systems are intended to achieve, understanding why they have been designed and implemented in a specific way, and understanding how they should function day-to-day is essential to ensure continued safe and reliable operations.

Section III

Practical Approaches for Implementing Process Safety

8

Operate Safe Processes

Safe operation costs much less than unsafe operation.

Kenneth Bloch

Why We Need to Operate Safe Processes

Safe process operation is essential for reducing the process safety risks and for reducing incidents. To help provide training consistency and to help ensure personnel competency, administrative controls are established for everyone working with or supporting the hazardous processes. Because decisions can either directly or indirectly impact one or more phases in the equipment life cycle, it is essential that everyone has the operational discipline and conduct their operations consistently with established protocols. Hence, there are administrative procedures for designing, fabricating, installing, commissioning, operating, maintaining, changing and decommissioning the equipment. For example, engineers have management of change procedures, operators have operating procedures, and maintenance personnel have maintenance procedures. Emergency responders help reduce operational risks using emergency response procedures designed to reduce incident consequences. Other groups, including senior leadership, upper management, occupational health and safety, environmental, security, quality, purchasing, receiving and shipping, must have procedures recognizing the process safety hazards and risks in their day-to-day conduct to support safe operations. The procedures are written for each specific group, documenting the expectations for their conduct of operations—their expected role—for supporting safe operations, and for providing the standard by which personnel competencies can be evaluated.

Operate safe processes by ensuring that personnel are provided appropriate procedures and training to develop capability in operations and process safety.

8.1 Introduction

Every group within the organization plays a role in operating safe processes, from the groups directly managing the process hazards and risks, such as engineering, operations and maintenance, to the groups affected by the process hazards and risks, such as emergency response, occupational health and safety, environmental, security, quality, purchasing, receiving and shipping. However, it is senior leadership, whether corporate, regional or local, that will have the greatest impact on safe operations. Leadership that provides a nourishing safety culture drives the behavior of the organization, providing a working atmosphere to integrate the process safety efforts across all disciplines and process safety systems.

Inherent to operating safe processes, the training efforts across the organization depend on the effective communication between these different groups affecting or being affected by the equipment life cycle and the other process safety systems, such as:

• designing the process

• understanding the hazards and managing their risks

• operating the process

• maintaining process integrity and reliability

• changing processes safely

• managing incident responses and investigations, and

• monitoring process safety program effectiveness.

This chapter focuses on how to address the training and competency of those directly impacting the equipment life cycle (refer to Figure 5.1) and of those directly or indirectly impacting the effectiveness of the process safety system’s Plan, Do, Change, Act (PDCA) life cycle (refer to Figure 3.7). Hence, how an organization can safely run their operations depends on the operational discipline of everyone from the shop floor to senior leadership. No one is exempt from their responsibility to manage their roles and responsibilities.

8.2 Key Concepts

8.2.1 Using Procedures

One of the main goals of administrative procedures is help reduce mistakes—to reduce the likelihood for human error. This can be achieved with a consistent and effective training approach on the expected behavior and actions which apply to everyone assigned to perform the same task or tasks. Personnel are expected to have access to and to follow these procedures, with effective training relying on well-written and up-to-date procedures, checklists and decision aids. For example, for personnel directly impacting the equipment life cycle, such as engineers, operators or mechanics, there are administrative management of change procedures for changing the equipment design, operating limits or inspections. Operators rely on written operating procedures that include a description of the steps for each operating phase, define the safe operating limits, and provide guidance on how to respond to process upsets. Mechanics and electricians have written maintenance procedures for their inspections and tests on the process equipment. In addition, safe work practices, permits and administrative procedures focusing on the hazards and risks associated with work activities in the process units, are written for and apply to everyone performing the tasks, including contractors. The safe work practice procedures and permits reflect how work is safely performed when hazards are present. The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has provided guidance on developing, using, and ensuring that procedures are reviewed [1–5].

8.2.2 Providing Competency Training

If leadership at the facility takes too much for granted, thinking that their personnel should already know what the hazards and risks are, they may not recognize that their personnel may not have the basic knowledge of the hazards and do not have a full understanding of why their associated risks are dangerous. Personnel can perish when they lack the knowledge and awareness of the hazards and risks, and not teaching them the basic competencies increases the likelihood of and consequences from incidents. Building everyone’s competency provides more organizational resilience for managing unexpected events, helping prevent serious incidents [6]. Keep in mind that training will range from basic awareness to detailed, skilled, and performance-based testing depending on the role and its tasks. All initial competency training must include basic awareness, such as an overview of the process and its associated hazards and risks. Depending on their level in the organization, specific written and performance-based evaluations must be required and documented. All personnel must have training documentation that verifies their knowledge, their skills and their abilities ensuring that they can safely carry out the duties and responsibilities specified in their procedures. Table 8.1 lists some of the general items that are used to sustain effective training programs. Developing process safety competency, no matter what discipline you work in, is discussed in further detail in Chapter 13.

8.2.3 Sustaining Safe Processes

The process safety procedures must be used, verified regularly, and sustained to ensure safe operations. It is only a matter of time when knowledge, procedures, and training becomes outdated due to newer and better technologies, procedural changes, workarounds, or system improvements. When newer technologies change the processing materials, the processing conditions, or the equipment, they must be reflected in the procedures. Periodically scheduled audits of the practices performed in the field are used to verify that the procedures reflect the current practices. Because skills become dormant when specific tasks are not done very often, refresher training must be provided at a regular frequency to sustain both procedures and personnel competencies. In some cases, particular procedures may be legislatively mandated for annual reviews [7].

TABLE 8.1

Items for Sustaining the Effectiveness of Training Programs

Effective Training Programs

• Are designed and implemented for all personnel, including awareness training for personnel who will not be touching the equipment. • Are designed and implemented to ensure that contractors are qualified to perform their tasks safely. • Ensure that all personnel understand the overall process and the specific safety and health hazards associated with the process and their tasks. • Ensure that the trained personnel are qualified to perform their tasks, including having the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to carry them out. • Ensure that qualifications are verified through oral/written exams, skills demonstrations, simulator demonstrations, or a combination thereof. • Ensure that training records are documented, including initial, and refresher training.

The capability of any organization depends on how well it successfully combines its physical assets, its capacity and its expertise in order to perform its core functions. When changes occur, whether driven by new technologies or organizational changes, a program must be in place to manage and update the existing procedures and to ensure personnel competencies. Thus, a facility’s change management system, described in Chapter 10, must be in place to ensure that the changes are implemented across all disciplines [1,8–9].

8.3 Developing Procedures: Process Safety Systems

Effective process safety systems depend on senior leadership providing the resources to manage the organization’s process safety program policies, standards, and guidelines—the corporate’s administrative controls. Senior leadership must visibly e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Disclaimer
• About the Authors
• List of Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Preface: A Different Approach
• Section I Key Concepts of Process Safety
• Section II Practical Approaches for Designing Safe Processes
• Section III Practical Approaches for Implementing Process Safety
• Section IV Practical Approaches for Achieving Process Safety Excellence
• Epilogue
• Index