Managing Process Safety

The first thing to understand about managing process safety at your facility is that if you think it's easy you're probably missing something. Process Safety Management is complex with various aspects managed by various departments all receiving different messages.

So what systems are out there?

There are two main systems which I am familiar with (there are more and please comment on the article to add references). The two systems are Centre for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and Energy Institute (EI). Both systems have 20 elements, both are accompanied by a series of guides and they are both comprehensive. In general I use the EI version as the supporting documentation to allow implementation, auditing and metric allocation is available free with an EI membership which makes it quite accessible.

CCPS 20 Elements

The CCPS split the scope into four foundation blocks and then have the 20 elements split underneath them.

Foundational Block: Commit to Process Safety

1. Process safety culture
2. Compliance with standards
3. Process safety competency
4. Workforce involvement
5. Stakeholder outreach

Foundational Block: Understand Hazards and Risks

1. Process knowledge management
2. Hazard identification and risk analysis (HIRA)

Foundational Block: Manage Risk

1. Operating procedures
2. Safe work practices
3. Asset integrity and reliability
4. Contractor management
5. Training and performance assurance
6. Management of change
7. Operational readiness
8. Conduct of operations
9. Emergency management

Foundational Block: Learn from Experience

1. Incident investigation
2. Measurements and metrics
3. Auditing
4. Management review and continuous improvement

EI 20 Elements

The EI do not split the elements into segments and you will see much overlap between the CCPS and the EI.

• Element 1: Leadership, commitment and responsibility
• Element 2: Identification and compliance with legislation and industry standards
• Element 3: Employee selection, placement and competency, and health assurance
• Element 4: Workforce involvement
• Element 5: Communication with stakeholders
• Element 6: Hazard identification and risk assessment
• Element 7: Documentation, records and knowledge management
• Element 8: Operating manuals and procedures
• Element 9: Process and operational status monitoring, and handover
• Element 10: Management of operational interfaces
• Element 11: Standards and practices
• Element 12: Management of change and project management
• Element 13: Operational readiness and process start-up
• Element 14: Emergency preparedness
• Element 15: Inspection and maintenance
• Element 16: Management of safety critical devices
• Element 17: Work control, permit to work and task risk management
• Element 18: Contractor and supplier selection and management
• Element 19: Incident reporting and investigation
• Element 20: Audit, assurance, management review and intervention

Summary

There are many ways to build a process safety management system and there is no right or wrong way. The systems are complex and require a lot of thought and management. It is so important to define 'how we do process safety here' so that everyone understands how what they do fits in with the bigger picture. Although in general process safety incidents require several failures (due to the nature of how we engineer systems, see LOPA article for more information) there are some aspects of your process safety management system which can undermine several elements. Try to find out what system you're using at your facility.

More information from the Energy Institute https://publishing.energyinst.org/

More information from the CCPS https://www.aiche.org/academy/courses/ela120/20-elements-risk-based-process-safety-rbps

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About the author: Louise Whiting is a professional process safety engineer and a chartered engineer registered with the IChemE. She has over 11 year experience in mainly operations support roles ranging from process engineering to process safety. She has worked in many different countries but the two main locations are offshore in the North Sea and in the Iraqi desert. She now manages her own path and everything she shares are her opinions (unless otherwise stated) and most definitely not those of her previous employers. For more information please visit www.louisewhiting.com.