Getting the Most from Your Process Safety Near Misses I

Significant process safety incidents and even minor incidents in the chemical and related industries are caused primarily by management system failures. The proper investigation of these incidents should identify the management system failures and the right corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence of not only the event that occurred, but also similar events. But these types of improvements take place after an undesired consequence has occurred. A program focused on identifying, tracking and investigating process safety near misses can address management system failures BEFORE a significant incident can occur. This session seeks papers that demonstrate how organizations have implemented process safety near miss programs and used them to drive a reduction in management system failures and ultimately a reduction in the number of incidents. Topics can include how data analysis on near misses is done, what is done with the data to drive improvement, how the learnings from an event in one facility is shared across the organization, and how improvements are seen as a result of the efforts. Preference will be given to papers that can illustrate their organization’s program with real-life examples and techniques that the audience can apply broadly.