Sharing the Safety
Process-safety culture change is like the cliched joke about men when they drive: they never want to read the map or ask directions
LAST OCTOBER, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its members celebrated the 20th anniversary of the initiation of the Responsible Care program. Among the program's many successes that were recounted, process safety incidents have been reduced by 51% in the last 10 years.
And this spring it seems process safety is very much in the air: April 19-22, the ACC has organized the 2009 Responsible Care Conference & Expo, to take place in Orlando, Florida, US. Then in May, the International Council of Chemical Associates (ICCA) will hold the second session of the International Conference on Chemical Management in Geneva, Switzerland, where the ICCA will present several reports on the improvement of safe chemical management.
To its credit, the ACC is including in its Expo a session on process safety culture change: a recognition of the fact that sometimes good ideas are not readily welcomed with open arms.
"Process safety is not like flipping a light switch and all the programs can be implemented overnight. It takes time to develop the right culture," says Tim Overton, chief process safety engineer for US producer Dow Chemical. "You've got to have strong leadership, at the top of the company and all the way down, to continuously emphasize the importance of your process safety programs, and people must be engaged at all levels of the organization."
He adds: "In the same way it can take years for a person to build a reputation, then seconds to lose it, the same thing can happen with process safety culture: It's hard work, it takes years to really establish the right culture," notes Overton. "But there can be some events that could cause you to lose that [reputation] relatively quickly and may make it difficult to restore later."
PROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS
In the process safety arena, the ACC adopted the Center for Chemical Process Safety's (CCPS) lagging safety metrics in 2008 as its process safety indicators, and its member companies started to report on those metrics in January 2009.
The CCPS was established by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 1985. It aims to bring together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academia and insurers to lead the way in improving industrial process safety.
The lagging metrics are based on incidents that have already occurred. Leading metrics look toward the future and indicate the performance of work processes. They include things like near-accidents.
"We encourage our members to use the CCPS approach and are hopeful that even outside the US we can harmonize process safety globally," says Debra Phillips, the ACC's managing director of the Responsible Care initiative.
However, the ACC does not plan to adopt the CCPS's leading indicators.
"Because of the huge volume [of leading indicators], we felt that was too much for us to be collecting on a national basis," says Phillips. "We encourage companies to look at that in their individual facilities, but it's not something we require to be reported into us at a national level."
In 2008, the ACC also added a specific guiding principle to Responsible Care on process safety to "elevate the visibility of those issues," notes Phillips. The guiding principles were signed by all member company CEOs.
HERE COMES THE JUDGE
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) currently has a Petroleum Refinery National Emphasis Program (NEP), under which the agency is now inspecting all petrochemical refineries in federal jurisdiction.
In 2007, after investigating the 2005 explosion and fire at BP's Texas City facility, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) recommended that OSHA launch a process safety management (PSM) NEP towards reducing the hazards associated with petroleum refineries.
"OSHA is about halfway done with its review of the refineries, and now intends to extend that program to look at chemical facilities as well," says Overton.
The vast majority of the chemical industry will be ready for the OSHA NEP when it is applied to the chemical industry, says Dow's Overton. OSHA's PSM of Highly Hazardous Chemicals sets requirements for employers in facilities with specified quantities of flammable liquids and gasses and other highly hazardous chemicals, including toxics and unstable substances, says the safety administration.
The PSM standard is a performance-based standard that requires covered employers to have management systems that prevent catastrophic incidents caused by the release of highly hazardous chemicals.
OSHA has not announced a schedule but does intend to roll out its chemical facilities NEP later this year.
"Because the majority of the chemical sector has had the [time to watch] what is happening with the petroleum and refinery side of things, we should be more 'audit ready,' " points out Overton.
PENNY WISE, BUT...
Corporate leadership in the chemical industry should not look to cut safety programs during an economic downturn, warns Overton. These times, he said, "require action that could be considered counter-intuitive: people need to overcome the desire to cut costs in seemingly smaller programs."
Historically, he adds, incidents at facilities usually occur after a company has "cut their costs too much in that particular area."
In December, John Bresland, chairman of the CSB, stated: "My safety message for oil and chemical companies is clear: even during economic downturns, spending for needed process safety measures must be maintained."
Bresland pointed out that investigators linked the Texas City disaster "to corporate spending decisions in the 1990s, when low oil prices triggered cutbacks in maintenance, training, and operator positions at the plant," says the CSB.
Recently, the UK-based Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) made a similar announcement, with PSLG chair Tony Traynor stating: "Cost savings must not be at the expense of safety and environmental controls needed to maintain the integrity of major hazard facilities."
"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"
"Human factors are an extremely important part of inherently safer concepts," says CCPS. "Processes should be designed to reduce the opportunities for human error."
"It's just amazing how many times we've seen incidents that could have been avoided if the operators had pulled up the instruction sheet and read it one more time," comments Dow's Overton. "There is a tendency for some people to say, 'I know how to do this; I don't need to check the instructions.' "
To drive the culture at the operator level, the leadership of the plants and businesses need to continually reinforce the safety standards for that company. "We really have to be able to explain to them and demonstrate the importance of using those procedures," he says.
"It really takes discipline, and you're not going to get there until you've convinced the organization of the procedure's importance. That's really getting back to corporate culture."
Meanwhile, though, the people at the leadership level have to realize that the money spent on what seems like minute and possibly insignificant details is not wasted. "So you really need to persuade them that, yes, there is an importance there, and that they need to be the messenger within their own business units," Overton notes.
"One of the keys to success is not just managing the problems that you can see on the surface but also gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying trends and influences behind the visible incidents," says Nigel Hobson, vice president operations and health safety security environment (HSSE), for Shell Chemicals. "Addressing these issues brings more sustained performance improvements."
At Dow, Overton explains, there is the expectation that if there is any form of an incident, even a minor spill or a near-miss, those events gets investigated. "Because we think you can learn from each of them, and we need to make sure we are putting the fixes into place to make sure no incident can occur," says the engineer. "It's so important to establish a culture where this is the right thing to do, and by doing things this way, it saves lives."
LAST OCTOBER, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its members celebrated the 20th anniversary of the initiation of the Responsible Care program. Among the program's many successes that were recounted, process safety incidents have been reduced by 51% in the last 10 years.
And this spring it seems process safety is very much in the air: April 19-22, the ACC has organized the 2009 Responsible Care Conference & Expo, to take place in Orlando, Florida, US. Then in May, the International Council of Chemical Associates (ICCA) will hold the second session of the International Conference on Chemical Management in Geneva, Switzerland, where the ICCA will present several reports on the improvement of safe chemical management.
To its credit, the ACC is including in its Expo a session on process safety culture change: a recognition of the fact that sometimes good ideas are not readily welcomed with open arms.
"Process safety is not like flipping a light switch and all the programs can be implemented overnight. It takes time to develop the right culture," says Tim Overton, chief process safety engineer for US producer Dow Chemical. "You've got to have strong leadership, at the top of the company and all the way down, to continuously emphasize the importance of your process safety programs, and people must be engaged at all levels of the organization."
He adds: "In the same way it can take years for a person to build a reputation, then seconds to lose it, the same thing can happen with process safety culture: It's hard work, it takes years to really establish the right culture," notes Overton. "But there can be some events that could cause you to lose that [reputation] relatively quickly and may make it difficult to restore later."
PROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS
In the process safety arena, the ACC adopted the Center for Chemical Process Safety's (CCPS) lagging safety metrics in 2008 as its process safety indicators, and its member companies started to report on those metrics in January 2009.
The CCPS was established by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 1985. It aims to bring together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academia and insurers to lead the way in improving industrial process safety.
The lagging metrics are based on incidents that have already occurred. Leading metrics look toward the future and indicate the performance of work processes. They include things like near-accidents.
"We encourage our members to use the CCPS approach and are hopeful that even outside the US we can harmonize process safety globally," says Debra Phillips, the ACC's managing director of the Responsible Care initiative.
However, the ACC does not plan to adopt the CCPS's leading indicators.
"Because of the huge volume [of leading indicators], we felt that was too much for us to be collecting on a national basis," says Phillips. "We encourage companies to look at that in their individual facilities, but it's not something we require to be reported into us at a national level."
In 2008, the ACC also added a specific guiding principle to Responsible Care on process safety to "elevate the visibility of those issues," notes Phillips. The guiding principles were signed by all member company CEOs.
HERE COMES THE JUDGE
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) currently has a Petroleum Refinery National Emphasis Program (NEP), under which the agency is now inspecting all petrochemical refineries in federal jurisdiction.
In 2007, after investigating the 2005 explosion and fire at BP's Texas City facility, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) recommended that OSHA launch a process safety management (PSM) NEP towards reducing the hazards associated with petroleum refineries.
"OSHA is about halfway done with its review of the refineries, and now intends to extend that program to look at chemical facilities as well," says Overton.
The vast majority of the chemical industry will be ready for the OSHA NEP when it is applied to the chemical industry, says Dow's Overton. OSHA's PSM of Highly Hazardous Chemicals sets requirements for employers in facilities with specified quantities of flammable liquids and gasses and other highly hazardous chemicals, including toxics and unstable substances, says the safety administration.
The PSM standard is a performance-based standard that requires covered employers to have management systems that prevent catastrophic incidents caused by the release of highly hazardous chemicals.
OSHA has not announced a schedule but does intend to roll out its chemical facilities NEP later this year.
"Because the majority of the chemical sector has had the [time to watch] what is happening with the petroleum and refinery side of things, we should be more 'audit ready,' " points out Overton.
PENNY WISE, BUT...
Corporate leadership in the chemical industry should not look to cut safety programs during an economic downturn, warns Overton. These times, he said, "require action that could be considered counter-intuitive: people need to overcome the desire to cut costs in seemingly smaller programs."
Historically, he adds, incidents at facilities usually occur after a company has "cut their costs too much in that particular area."
In December, John Bresland, chairman of the CSB, stated: "My safety message for oil and chemical companies is clear: even during economic downturns, spending for needed process safety measures must be maintained."
Bresland pointed out that investigators linked the Texas City disaster "to corporate spending decisions in the 1990s, when low oil prices triggered cutbacks in maintenance, training, and operator positions at the plant," says the CSB.
Recently, the UK-based Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) made a similar announcement, with PSLG chair Tony Traynor stating: "Cost savings must not be at the expense of safety and environmental controls needed to maintain the integrity of major hazard facilities."
"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"
"Human factors are an extremely important part of inherently safer concepts," says CCPS. "Processes should be designed to reduce the opportunities for human error."
"It's just amazing how many times we've seen incidents that could have been avoided if the operators had pulled up the instruction sheet and read it one more time," comments Dow's Overton. "There is a tendency for some people to say, 'I know how to do this; I don't need to check the instructions.' "
To drive the culture at the operator level, the leadership of the plants and businesses need to continually reinforce the safety standards for that company. "We really have to be able to explain to them and demonstrate the importance of using those procedures," he says.
"It really takes discipline, and you're not going to get there until you've convinced the organization of the procedure's importance. That's really getting back to corporate culture."
Meanwhile, though, the people at the leadership level have to realize that the money spent on what seems like minute and possibly insignificant details is not wasted. "So you really need to persuade them that, yes, there is an importance there, and that they need to be the messenger within their own business units," Overton notes.
"One of the keys to success is not just managing the problems that you can see on the surface but also gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying trends and influences behind the visible incidents," says Nigel Hobson, vice president operations and health safety security environment (HSSE), for Shell Chemicals. "Addressing these issues brings more sustained performance improvements."
At Dow, Overton explains, there is the expectation that if there is any form of an incident, even a minor spill or a near-miss, those events gets investigated. "Because we think you can learn from each of them, and we need to make sure we are putting the fixes into place to make sure no incident can occur," says the engineer. "It's so important to establish a culture where this is the right thing to do, and by doing things this way, it saves lives."
quoted from: www.ICIS.com
