(53s) So You Have Implemented PSM. Does It Help You to Better Recover from Major Disasters? | AIChE

(53s) So You Have Implemented PSM. Does It Help You to Better Recover from Major Disasters?

Authors 

Ariawan, A. - Presenter, E.I. DuPont Canada
Short, L. S., DuPont Sustainable Solutions

Worldwide we are seeing a growth in extreme weather systems. Back-to-back hurricanes in the US illustrated the devastating potential of storms on our industrial network. Puerto Rico lost power and water to the entire island. Hurricane Harvey dropped over 27 trillion gallons of water on Louisiana and Texas. Extreme flooding knocked out emergency backup power at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas resulting in an explosion and fire, forcing residents to evacuate the area around the plant. This is important because as much of 31 percent of total US refining capacity was taken offline or drastically reduced during the storm. Certainly, all these plants have emergency management and crisis response plans, but do they have business continuity management (BCM) systems in place? Are companies really looking at how to manage the business in the event of any large-scale disruption: extreme weather and natural disasters, accidents, infrastructure and utility failures, terrorism (there was an attempted terrorist attack at a French Chemical plant), and even supply chain disruptions. How can PSM be integrated to the concept of business continuity?

A BCM system is different from typical emergency response plans in that it is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats and vulnerabilities to a plant’s business and operations, develops strategies to make plant operations resilient to a large-scale event and develops procedures to help quickly restore services and continue operations. This is done through a set of arrangements and procedures that define measures that a company can proactively take to prepare for a crisis or disaster, hopefully prevent some of the worst scenarios, respond during the actual crisis, and effectively manage the long-term recovery. It builds upon the foundation of PSM, expanding it to help businesses restore mission critical services and operations following a disruptive event as quickly and effectively as possible. This is done through conducting a risk assessment of operations, determining risk impact to business processes, developing continuity plans and agreements (such as MOUs with emergency suppliers) and then regularly testing and exercising those plans. The result is an effective system to prepare, prevent, respond, and recover from any major disruption to plant operations. This takes PSM beyond safety!