For Everyone’s Sake, Keep It in the Pipe!Safe Handling Practices and Risk Reduction for Toxic Inhalation Hazards

An 86% reduction in Tier 1 and Tier 2 loss of primary containment incidents has been realized in the five years following the introduction of Walk the Line to Celanese. Walk the Line originally was shared at the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and AIChE Safety & Health Division Global Congress for Process Safety in 2014 to address operator line-up errors with three groups of Conduct of Operations tools: changing the culture by setting expectations, operational continuity through operating discipline, and operational readiness.

Since then, Celanese has shared Walk the Line concepts with the Advancing Process Safety (APS) initiative of the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufactures (AFPM). This includes creation of practice sharing and hazard identification documents, integration with other aspects of APS including regional networks, event sharing and metrics, site assessments and creation of a Walk the Line internet portal. Industry has come together in the last two years for a one day Walk the Line workshop; an opportunity to share practices. Walk the Line was shared with the American Chemistry Council members at an Enhancing Process Safety information sharing forum. Eleven companies have since contributed to the AFPM industry effort, and we estimate that approximately 35 companies have implemented at least one Walk the Line tool.

This paper will provide an update on our effort to eliminate operator line-up error in industry. It will outline additional steps taken by Celanese and the results as well as highlight how industry came together to improve on a systemic cause of process safety incidents.