Search form

Elements of Process Safety

The four pillars and the twenty elements of risk based process safety can be designed and implemented at varying levels of rigor to optimize process safety management, performance, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Management of Change (MOC) Basics for Plant Engineers

Mar 14, 2011
R. Wayne Garland
The essentials of Management of Change (MOC) for plant engineers will be presented. The meaning of MOC will be explained and its central role in safe plant operation will be shown, including how it fits with other aspects of plant safety. The objectives of MOC will be discussed along with the...

How to Develop Effective Safety Training? A Lifecycle Approach

Mar 14, 2011
Shay Segev
Safety training is one of the most important tools for upgrading the safety level and for minimizing the likelihood and the consequences of accidents. However, as the cost involved is high (most of the training cost is usually associated with its participants time), it is highly important that the...

Systematic Workforce Involvement In Process Safety

Mar 14, 2011
Cory D. Shelton
Workforce involvement is an essential element of effective process safety management. This paper will describe proven methods of workforce involvement in process safety. An assessment will then be described to evaluate the use and quality of applying these methods. Critical success factors are...

The Obvious-to-Obscure Process Safety Checklist for Plant Engineers

Mar 14, 2011
John T. Perez, Simon R. Layton
The recent process safety performance of the energy industry has led to scrutiny of industry and company-specific process safety standards, guidelines, and best practices. Several elements of process safety focus directly on the knowledge-base and experience of a facility's workforce. Plant...

LOPA – Validating Human IPLs and Ies

Mar 14, 2011
Bill Bridges
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is a simplified risk assessment method that provides an order of magnitude estimate of the risk of a potential accident scenario. Humans can be the cause on an accident scenario (the Initiating Event [IE]) or human can serve as an independent protection layer (...

Portfolio Risk Management for Process Safety

Mar 14, 2011
Georges Melhem
A majority of PSM tools and risk methodologies are focused on risks at individual sites or process units. For example, PHA risk ranking matrices are frequently cast in terms of consequences that occur at a plant level. However, corporations with many operating facilities need to find ways to...

Using the HAZOP Study and LOPA to Generate Ideas for Inherently Safer Designs

Mar 14, 2011
Steven T. Maher
Fundamental changes in a chemical process are most cost-effective at early stages of a design, and specific Inherently Safer Design evaluations are frequently performed at these early stages to identify fundamental improvements that can signicantly decrease the magnitude of the consequences...

A Work Process for Revalidating LOPAs and Other Risk Analyses

Mar 14, 2011
Timothy J. Wagner
The Chemical Process Industry (CPI) has long recognized the necessity of periodically revalidating Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs), such as Hazard and Operability Studies and What-if analyses. CCPS has published a book which describes this work process titled Revalidating Process Hazard Analyses...

Inherently Safer Acids - A Case Study on the Application of Polyelectrolytes

Mar 14, 2011
Elliot M. Wolf
Strong acids, such as aqueous hydrochloric acid, are commonly used in the chemical process industry to purify streams or remove particulates from raw material, product, and waste streams. The benefits of HCl are its' low cost, large dissociation constant, and stability over time. However, the...

Inherently Safer Design – Not Only about Reducing Consequences!

Mar 14, 2011
Dennis C. Hendershot
Process risk is a function of both the likelihood of occurance of an incident, and of the consequences of the incident. There is a common perception that inherently safer design focuses solely on reducing or eliminating the consequences. However, inherently safer design can also focus on the...

Inherent Safety In Front End Engineering

Mar 14, 2011
Ian Sutton
The best time to apply the principles of inherent safety is during the early stages of a design. In particular it is at the early stages that the ?Eliminate? option is best applied. For example, in the early stages of one design the process engineers had come up with a system of three knockout...

Near Miss Reporting Behavior and the Safety Climate – A Scenario-Based Study

Mar 14, 2011
Sunil D. Lakhiani
In the aftermath of the March, 2005 incident at BP's Texas City Refinery, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board cited concerns about ?the effectiveness of the safety management system? and ?the corporate safety culture? at that refinery. Included in the Baker Panel's findings were discussions about...

Specifying Reliability Performance to Meet PSM Expectations

Mar 14, 2011
Kenneth P. Bloch
Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and Mechanical Integrity (MI) programs are two of the fourteen elements that the Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard uses to prevent or minimize the consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable, or explosive chemicals. Experience proves that...

Pages

Subscribe to Elements of Process Safety