(536f) Measuring Safety Decision-Making Effectiveness with an Engineering Process Safety Research Instrument (EPSRI)

A common approach toward improving process safety decision-making of a student or employee is increasing their knowledge of design techniques such as proper vent sizing and inherently safer design or operational measures such as HAZOP. However, another key part of process safety is in-the-moment decision making of individuals. In these moments individuals are often forced to make a decision in the context of a dilemma, where competing incentives and disincentives (such as cost savings at the risk of decreased safety) make decisions more difficult.

This work presents an Engineering Process Safety Research Instrument (EPSRI) which can be used to judge in-the-moment process safety decision making of individuals in a Neo-Kohlbergian ethical context. The EPSRI measures how much an individual values selfish motivators in the context of decision making during a dilemma as opposed to value-based systems. The goal of the EPSRI is to represent a validated assessment method of the effectiveness of process safety training, coursework or other interventions on decision making. Details on development, content validation and testing of the EPSRI in real life scenarios will be presented and discussed.