Process Safety Culture

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crewmembers aboard. After extensive investigation, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that the organizational safety culture gaps contributed significantly to this loss. Upon review of The CAIB report, the CCPS Technical Steering Committee concluded that the same cultural factors that impacted NASA could also impact on the chemical and petroleumn industries. CCPS invites chemical, petroleum, and other companies to use these materials to evaluate their company's process safety culture and to develop improvement strategies.

Developing, sustaining, and enhancing the organization's process safety culture is one of elements in the RBPS pillar of committing to process safety. CCPS members invite you to start the journey by reviewing the Building Process Safety Culture Tool Kit and then explore resources listed below to understand the attributes of a sound culture, and how your organization might begin to enhance its own culture.

Gains From Getting near Misses Reported

Apr 3, 2012
Bill Bridges
[An earlier edition of this paper was first presented at the “International Conference and Workshop – Process Safety Incidents,” 2000, organized by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)] The need for effective root cause analysis is finally gaining the spotlight in the chemical process...

Continuing Our Process Safety Management (PSM) Journey: How Time and Technology Have Helped Change the Public's View (A Case Study for Where We Are Today and Where We Can Go Tomorrow)

Apr 3, 2012
Bruce K. Vaughen
This paper briefly explores the history of basic PSM principles, first describing a historical view of how PSM developed into today's PSM Elements. Then this paper covers a proposed direction for PSM's future that may help address the changing nature of the public's view of the chemical industry –...

Challenges in Applying PSM to Production Pilot Plants & Laboratories

Apr 3, 2012
Bruce D. Bullough
The CordenPharma Colorado, Inc. (CPC) site in Boulder includes at least eight production facilities. The majority (six) are production laboratories and pilot plants, with synthesizers and vessels of a few liters to a few thousand liters. All of the production process systems are connected to at...

A Pre-Plan for Process Safety Management

Apr 3, 2012
Sheryl Goddard
This paper will present the steps a small pharmaceutical research and development company is taking to prepare for Process Safety Management (PSM). Although not under PSM at the present time, the corporate growth plan is such that PSM will be a requirement within the next 2 to 5 years. When looking...

Are Your Credits Worthy?

Apr 2, 2012
Lisa Long
Chemical and petrochemical manufacturing processes can be subject to high consequence, low frequency events. Process Safety Management programs are intended to identify and eliminate or manage the hazards associated with these events. In recent years, industry has increasingly turned to...

Half a Century of Olefin Plant Accidents: The Role of Mechanical Integrity

Apr 2, 2012
Sebastian Diaz
Sebastian Diaz, Aon energy Risk Engineering, League City, TX. Email: sebastian.diaz@aon.com Russ Davis, CSP Aon Energy Risk Engineering, League City, TX. Email: russ.davis@aon.com Keywords: mechanical integrity, loss of containment, major accidents Abstract Since OSHA's Process Safety Management...

Retired and Dangerous

Apr 2, 2012
Robert F. Wasileski
“Planning not to retire is simply not a viable retirement strategy.” — Catherine Collinson, Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies The Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) process is an important component of a facility's strategy to managing the risks associated with process...

Improving the Performance of Established PSM Programs

Apr 2, 2012
James A. Klein
Many facilities have now implemented and maintained PSM programs for 20 years or more, but these facilities continue to have sometimes serious incidents and injuries suggesting a continuing need to improve their PSM performance. Of course, new requirements are often added to upgrade PSM programs,...

Avoiding Common PHA Mistakes

Apr 2, 2012
Glenn Young
OSHA's National Emphasis Program (NEP) on refineries has concluded. The two most cited elements of the Process Safety Management standard (PSM - 1910.119) in the NEP were Mechanical Integrity and Process Hazard Analysis (PHA). [1] This session will focus on common problems in PHA and how to avoid...

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