FOCUS, Objective, and Simple Actions Have Changed Perception and Culture Concerning Process Safety At Monsanto

Abstract:

Monsanto
do Brazil - São Jose dos Campos plant is comprised of robust and solid programs
to prevent accidents to its employees and partners. In the last five years, it
has had a TRR (Total Recordable Rate) of 0.3.

However,
as it is a Chemical Industry in the Herbicide segment, it needed to increase
its level of Human and facilities reliability, and in 2006 it started to seek
excellence in Process Safety. 

            To achieve that excellence, Monsanto
understood it was necessary to change the view, the attitude, and, as a
consequence, the culture concerning Process Safety of its employees and
partners. Based on this premise, over the last six years, new programs have
been created, the existing programs have been upgraded, bringing innovation
into trainings for the operational level, Engineering and medium management,
besides benchmarking visits to
companies with solid base in Process Safety.

In this
new phase, financial resources have been better targeted in projects and
changes, ensuring a better reliability of the facilities, moving toward the new
culture that was being created.

             The main ?Triggers? that changed the history
of Monsanto São Jose dos Campos regarding the understanding, perception, and
attitude in relation to Safety Process were:

·        
Development
of the RMP (Risk Management Program)

Until
2006, the company neither had a written, documented Risk Management Program,
nor recognized what the fundamental ?Elements? for the Safety Process
Management in the site were.

Those
elements were based on the Norm P4. 261, rev. 2003 of CETESB, and on Monsanto Corporate
Requirements.

With the
development of the RMP, those fundamental ?Elements? that were only part of the
Integrated Management System (IMS) were grouped and included in the Risk
Management procedure, and a PDCA (Plan,
Do, Check and Action) cycle was created for each of them. With this
organized structure, all the employees and partners were trained, becoming able
to recognize and identify each Element as part of the Safety Process, and not
only as a simple procedure of the Management System.

·        
Theoretical
and practical training on Process Risk Analysis ? Forming Leaders

Until
2007, Process Risk Analysis were confused with Task Risk Analysis, in other
words, as the Industrial Safety culture was very strong, the evaluated risks
were falls, cuts, contusions, etc. For a new concept
of inherent risk to the productive process be introduced into the site, a
theoretical training was provided to all the process engineers focusing on
HAZOP (Hazard Operability) and PRA
(Preliminary Risk Analysis) tools, including failure modes of productive
systems. During the PHA (Process Hazard
Analysis) of each area, the responsible engineer of the area, who had been
trained in the theoretical part, had sixteen hours of risk study tutored by a
qualified professional, putting into practice all the concepts learned in the
theoretical part of the training, developing the Leader of the PHA in this way.

·           
PHA Schedule

       The development of the PHA schedule of five
(5) and ten (10) years enabled a long term vision of the Process Risk Analysis
of each productive area, as well as the introduction of this Target into the
Objectives and Targets spreadsheet of the unit, and into the document of
Targets of the participants of the risk study in question. This measure was
important for the commitment of the involved ones, and for the quality of the
analysis.   

·           
MOC - Management of Change

In
the phase of changing culture, one of the most important procedures was of the
Management of Change, since the projects and changes in the productive
processes were and are made on a routine basis. Without a solid base, a strong
evaluation of risks, and updates of documents, all the efforts to change the
perception of risks and the culture would fail. Based on it, a robust risk
evaluation Check list, and an electronic database of all the documents of the
unit were created, as well as a position of administrator of that system, in
which the responsible persons for the projects and changes only conclude their
work after updating all the documentation impacted by the change. Documents did
not use to follow the changes made in the productive unit.

·        
PSM (Process Safety Management) Committee

The
PSM committee is comprised of Process, Electrical, Mechanical, and Safety
Process Engineers aiming to share good practices among productive areas,
analyze the applicability of incidents occurred internally or externally to
Monsanto, develop or revise procedures and programs in order to assure the
integrity of the facilities and technical expertise of the involved ones.
Two-hour meetings are held monthly.

·        
Theoretical
and Practical training for Operational level

Safety
Process trainings offered to the operators consist of theoretical and practical
parts. In the theoretical part, films of the CSB (Chemical Safety Board) are shared aiming to analyze the
applicability and recycling of the procedures. In the practical part, the
training occurs in the field, in the productive area, showing ?in loco? the
risk scenarios, or in the training Practice Academy, where there are fictitious
stations to simulate a real activity, as well as the inherent risks. By means
of this practice, it was possible to speak about Safety Process without
subjectivity, but with actual examples of the operators' daily activities.

·        
Indicators
of PSM

The
indicators of PSM were developed based on the Elements considered as critical
for the integrity of the facilities, as well as to increase the perception of
the importance of those elements.  The
indicators are shared monthly by medium and high management, who in turn help
keeping the Targets of the indicators. 
Those are:

a-    Preventive:
Overdue maintenance plans of Mechanical Integrity, Not due PHA recommendations,
Not provided PSM training, MOC open for ninety (90) days, Overdue Operational
Instructions with more than one (1) year; Not due PSM Audit recommendations

b-   
Reactive: PSI (Process Safety incident), PSIR (Process
Safety Incident Rate), and PSSR (Process
Safety Severity rate)

Conclusion

            With the efforts
made and work performed over these six years, Monsanto has developed greatly
its knowledge and vision, and its employees and partners have been showing
change in the culture of Safety Process. It can be evidenced through the
excellent result of the external PSM Audit with only eight recommendations,
zero overdue PHA actions and PSM audit, zero overdue maintenance plan of
Mechanical Integrity, and only one Safety Process accident in 2011, without
material losses and damages to people or facilities, presenting only contention
loss. (PSI = 1).