Understandn Process Safety_back to Basics

7/27/2019 Understandn Process Safety_back to Basics

1/8

26 www.aiche.org/cep August 2010 CEP

Back to Basics

Process safety and process safety management systems

touch almost every aspect of designing, construct-

ing, operating, maintaining, modifying, and closing

a manufacturing site. With requirements and regulatory

obligations that are often difficult to understand and hard to

implement, this field may seem extremely complex to theinexperienced engineer.

Process safety management (PSM) has a variety of

meanings and purposes. AIChEs Center for Chemical

Process Safety (CCPS) defines PSM as a management

system that is focused on prevention of, preparedness for,

mitigation of, response to, and restoration from catastrophic

releases of chemicals or energy from a process associated

with a facility (1). History has shown that a lack of, an

ignorance of, or an improper or inadequate implementation

of a suitable PSM program can be disastrous. The events

that occurred in Flixborough, England, and Bhopal, India,

exemplify this point.This article outlines the concepts and tools that are

needed to develop, implement, audit, and manage a risk-

based PSM system. It does so using a structured approach

that can be compared to constructing a building. The first

step in erecting a building is to lay a foundation. Similarly,

risk-based PSM systems are built on a foundation of four

key components (Figure 1):

1. Commit to Process Safety

2. Understand Hazards and Risk3. Manage Risks

4. Learn from Experience

These four foundation blocks support 20 process-safety-

related tools and areas of expertise that form a structurally

sound, risk-based PSM program.

Commit to process safety

This foundation block involves words, actions, demon-

stration, and support. It starts with developing and sustaining

a culture that encourages, embraces, and supports process

safety. The commitment exists at all levels of an organiza-

tion and in every individual at every facility. It permeates theattitude and work ethic of every employee. Commitment to

process safety includes understanding, implementing, and

complying with applicable laws, regulations, standards, and

A structured risk-based approach

defines the pathways to successful

implementation of process safety

management objectives

Adrian L. Sepeda

A. L. Sepeda Consulting Inc.

Understanding ProcessSafety Management

COMMIT TO

PROCESS SAFETY

UNDERSTAND

HAZARDS

AND RISK

MANAGE RISKLEARN FROM

EXPERIENCE

S Figure 1. An effective risk-based PSM program is built on a strong foundation consisting of a commitment to process safety, an understanding of hazardsand risk, appropriate risk management measures, and continual learning from experience.

Copyright 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)


2/8

CEP August 2010 www.aiche.org/cep 27

accepted codes of recommended practices.

As shown in Figure 2, the Commit to Process Safety

foundation block supports five pillars.

1. Process Safety Culture

is the combination of groupvalues and behaviors that determine the manner in which

process safety is managed. The culture can range from

undesirable, with uncontrolled and unknown risk-taking, to

desirable, where risks are identified and managed. Culture

starts at the top of the organization and requires support,

understanding, and adaptation at every level. Culture must

constantly be reviewed, reinforced, and enhanced to ensure

it is consistent. This is done by:

constantly maintaining a sense of vulnerability and

avoiding complacency

empowering individuals to successfully fulfill their

process safety responsibilities

maintaining a sufficient level of expertise

establishing and maintaining an open and effective

communication system

establishing and fostering a questioning and learning

environment

gaining and maintaining trust throughout the

organization

ensuring prompt and timely responses to process safety

issues and concerns.

2. Compliance with Standards. This pillar involves

identifying the standards that apply to your operation, under-

standing and implementing those standards, and auditing

against the standards to ensure adherence, effectiveness, andcontinuous improvement. Standards come in many forms,

including voluntary industry standards, such as American

Petroleum Institute Recommended Practices (e.g., API

RP 752, which relates to the siting and protection of people

in buildings), and consensus codes, such as those developed

by the National Fire Protection Association (e.g., NFPA 921:

Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations). Other stan-

dards are mandatory, such as U.S. federal, state, and/or local

laws and regulations (e.g., 29 CFR 1910.119, the Occupa-

tional Safety and Health Administrations [OSHA] standard

for the management of process safety), and international

laws and regulations, such as the European CommissionSeveso II Directive, which involves the control of major

accident hazards involving dangerous substances.

Standards-compliance activities may be managed by

various groups within an organization, which must:

ensure that a consistent and appropriate understanding

of the standard exists and that a matching implementation

strategy is developed and is followed

implement a methodology for determining which stan-

dard requires compliance and by when

involve the right people with the needed competencies

at the right time

develop and imple-

ment an appropriate

management system

that ensures compliance

actions remain effective

install an audit

system and distribute audit

reports to the appropriate

individuals to ensure they

are notified of the actions

required for continuous

compliance.

3. Process Safety Com-

petency encompasses three

related actions:

continuously

improving knowledge and

proficiency

ensuring that appropriate information is available to

people who need it when they need it

consistently applying what has been learned.

This often requires assessing the availability of informa-

tion, gathering knowledge and lessons learned from external

sources, customizing and disseminating that informationfor use throughout your organization, updating documenta-

tion as needed, implementing document control procedures,

and conducting periodic training to institutionalize the new

information.

Process safety competency is achieved when every

person in the organization knows his or her process safety

responsibilities and is empowered to assume them.

4. Workforce Involvement. The fourth pillar recognizes

that PSM must span from the lowest job level up to the top

of the corporate ladder. Every level between must be edu-

cated, involved, and empowered.

The Center for Chemical

Process Safety

Formed in 1985 after the Bhopal

tragedy, AIChEs Center for Chemical Process Safety

(CCPS) has provided leadership and technical support

in an effort to eliminate process-safety-related incidents.

CCPSs most advanced approach is embodied in its

book, Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety (1).

This article is based on the risk-based approach to

process safety.

ProcessSafetyCulture

ProcessSafetyCompetency

WorkforceInvolvement

StakeholderOutreach

CompliancewithStandards

COMMIT TO

PROCESS SAFETY

X Figure 2. The Commit toProcess Safety foundation blocksupports five pillars related tocompany culture, practices andbehaviors.



3/8


Back to Basics

The people who operate and maintain the equipment

are the front line of defense and the first layer of protection

against catastrophic events. If these people are not educated

in PSM, this level of protection is lost. Likewise, those whomake resource decisions must also be educated to under-

stand what needs must be met to maintain an effective PSM

system. Workforce involvement includes not only employ-

ees, but contractors as well.

A written action plan should be developed that summa-

rizes the PSM requirements and captures the knowledge of

those responsible for implementing PSM on the front lines.

Such plans often become stagnant and ignored. Therefore,

involving the front-line workforce in addressing process-

safety-related problems capitalizes on their expertise they

often have valuable insight into how problems can be solved

with the resources available.

5. Stakeholder Outreach is comprised of three activities:

seeking out individuals or organizations that can be

affected by company operations and engaging them in a

dialogue about process safety

establishing a relationship with community organiza-

tions, other companies, professional groups, and local, state,

and federal authorities

providing accurate information about the company and

the facilitys products, processes, plans, hazards, risks, and

how they are managed.

A company should use stakeholder outreach to secure

and continuously renew its political license to operate in the

community. Effective outreach can move the communityfrom merely tolerating the presence of the facility to appreci-

ating its presence as a trusted and valuable

contributor.

Outreach is not solely the responsibility

of management or the corporate public rela-

tions staff. In fact, members of the commu-

nity may find representatives of the local,

operational work force their neighbors

more believable. In some situations,

when management talks, people listen, but

when the front-line workers talk, people

believe.

Understand hazards and risk

There is an important difference

between a hazard and a risk. A hazard is

defined as chemical or physical conditions

that have the potential for causing harm

to people, property, or the environment,

whereas risk is defined as the combination

of three attributes: what can go wrong, how bad it could be,

and how often it might happen (1).

The Understand Hazards and Risk foundation block sup-

ports two pillars (Figure 3). 1. Process Knowledge Management. This pillar requires

one or more of the following types of information:

Chemical Hazard Information. Each chemical has

hazards that must be identified, understood, and managed.

Hazard information is often supplied in Material Safety Data

Sheets (MSDS). Care should be taken to ensure the MSDSs

are current and accurate.

Process Technology Information. Each process is built

around a specific technology, which must be characterized,

understood, and managed. Process technology information is

usually contained in the original design documentation, but

the design may change over time. An effective management

of change (MOC) program should be in place to keep the

process technology information current and accurate.

Process Equipment Information. Each piece of equip-

ment in the facility has defined specifications, safe operating

limitations, and approved uses. For example, the specifica-

tions for a centrifugal pump include impeller size, inlet and

outlet piping connections, size and pressure ratings of the

flanges, materials of construction, etc. These data must be

updated when equipment is modified or replaced.

All of this information must be shared with those who

need it to do their job safely. In addition to ensuring that

these data exist, the facility must have a validated method-

ology to ensure that those who need to know actually havethe information when needed.

2. Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis. This pillar

is also referred to as process hazards analysis (PHA). The

most common PHA methodologies are scenario-based, and

include (2):

What-if Analysis. In this free-form brainstorming

approach, a group of experienced participants repeatedly

asks the question What if? and then discusses the haz-

ards that might be uncovered in the answers to the question.

What-if/Checklist Analysis. This structured brainstorm-

ing approach combines the creative features of What if?

with a checklist to make sure the questioning is pertinent tothe potential hazards.

Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Analysis. This sys-

tematic technique identifies potential hazards and operational

problems that could result from deviations from the process

design intent. A specific section (or node) of the process flow

diagram is selected for analysis. Scenarios are constructed by

combining specific guide words (e.g., no, less, more, reverse,

etc.) with various process parameters (e.g., flow, temperature,

pressure, level, etc.) to form the basis for exploring hypo-

thetical conditions such as more pressure or reverse flow.

When a hazard is identified, the group generates one or more

ProcessKno

wledgeManagement

HazardIdentificationandRiskAnalysis

UNDERSTAND

HAZARDS

AND RISKX Figure 3. The Understand Hazards and Riskfoundation element serves as a basis for two pillarsinvolving process knowledge and hazard identification.



4/8


recommendations to address the issue. Then it moves on to

another question. After all meaningful questions associated

with that node are asked and answered, the team repeats the

procedure for the next node, and so on until the entirefl

owdiagram has been analyzed.

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). This

approach determines the ways that each piece of equipment

in the process could fail and the most likely consequences if

that were to happen. If the consequences are unacceptable,

then risk-reduction plans are developed. These plans could

reduce the probability of failure, its likely consequences, or

both. FMEA is similar to HAZOP in that questions relating

to deviations are asked and answered. Instead of moving

from one process node to another node, however, the team

moves from one piece of equipment to another.

Fault Tree Analysis. This deductive technique focuses

on one particular incident or failure at a time and backtracks

through all the events leading to that failure to determine the

potential causes. A fault tree is a graphical model that uses

standard symbols to display the combinations of failures and

failure pathways that could result in a significant event of

concern called the top event. Since this technique starts

with a failure, it is often used for incident investigations.

Event Tree Analysis. This graphical technique starts

with an initiating cause, and then determines all of the pos-

sible outcomes that could result from the success or failure

of protective systems. It is typically used to identify inci-

dents that might occur in more-complex processes.

Cause-Consequence Analysis. This method combines theinductive reasoning used in event tree analysis with the deduc-

tive reasoning of fault tree analysis. A cause-consequence

analysis generates a diagram that describes incident sequences

and descriptions of possible outcomes of those incidents.

These techniques identify and analyze hazards. The

hazards must then be translated into risks before a risk-

management program can be implemented.

Risk is an expression of the probability that an event will

occur combined with the consequences if it does. Normally,

these elements are independent for process-related risks.

However, if the risk relates to security, probability and

consequence are not independent because the higher theconsequence, the more attractive the event is to someone

intent on causing harm and the higher its probability (3).

Risks need to be clearly and accurately characterized so that

they can be properly prioritized.

Risks may be expressed qualitatively or quantitatively.

Quantitative risk assessment is more accurate than qualita-

tive risk assessment, but it requires more expertise, takes

more time, and is more expensive. A quantitative risk assess-

ment requires numerical values for both the probability that

a certain event may occur and the consequences that would

result if it did. It is often difficult to obtain these values with

a high level of precision, so semi-quantitative values are

sometimes used instead.

Many companies use a two-dimensional risk matrix

(Figure 4) to characterize risk. One axis represents theprobability that a certain event will occur and the other axis

represents the expected consequences. Each level on the

probability and consequence axes must be defined, which is

often done semi-quantitatively using a scale of 1 = very low

to 5 = very high. Each cell within the risk matrix captures

the probability and consequence of a specific event i.e.,

the risk. The risk of one event can then be compared to pre-

established levels of tolerability for risk, and the appropriate

risk-reduction measures taken.

Manage risk

Risks can be managed only after hazards have been

identified and translated into risks and the potential impacts

on the safety and viability of the facility characterized. Once

the range of impacts is known, the risks can be compared

and prioritized and the available risk-management resources

allocated accordingly.

The Manage Risk foundation block supports nine

pillars (Figure 5).

1. Operating Procedures are (usually written) instruc-

tions that list the steps for a given task and describe the

manner and order in which those steps are to be performed.

Written and enforced procedures are necessary to manage

the risks associated with operating a manufacturing process.

Good operating procedures also describe the process,the hazards, the tools needed, the protective equipment

A

A

A B

B B

B B

B

B C

C

C

C

C

D

D

D

D D

D

D

E

E E

Probability

Consequence

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

W Figure 4. An exampleof a risk matrix, in whichthe x axis representsconsequence severity(1 = very low to 5 = mostsevere), and the y axisrepresents probability(1 = very low to 5 = veryhigh). The letter in eachcell indicates the levelof risk and defines the

appropriate risk-manage-ment strategy.

Risk Level and Response

A = Tolerable risk; no action required

B = Low risk, but watch closely

C = Questionable risk; look into inexpensive risk-reduction measures; watch

closely for changes

D = Intolerable risk; consider risk-reduction measures; report status to safety

officers

E = Very intolerable risk; Immediate action required to reduce r isk at least one

level; report to safety officers until permanently lowered at least one level



5/8


Back to Basics

required, and the control system employed to manage the

process and the risks (1).

Operating procedures are usually more accurate, gener-

ally accepted, and followed more closely when they aredeveloped jointly by operators and process engineers who

have a high degree of involvement and knowledge of pro-

cess operations. Changes to operating procedures should be

closely monitored and approved through a management of

change (MOC) process, just as any physical equipment or

process change would be (1).

2. Safe Work Practices are the documents, actions, and

routines that fill the void between operating procedures and

maintenance procedures (1). Safe work practices are usually

established for repeatable tasks, such as hot work, electrical

lockouts, confined-space entry, and elevated work requiring

fall protection. Some of these tasks are performed regularly,whereas others may done intermittently. They are not part of

the manufacturing process, and usually require a permit issued

by the safety and/or the manufacturing department because

they are not fully described in an operating procedure. Safe

work practices are important because such tasks may present

new hazards not encountered during normal operations.

3. Asset Integrity and Reliability. This pillar involves the

use of procedures, work orders, and management oversight

to ensure that equipment is properly designed, installed,

and maintained to remain fit for service until removed

and/or retired. Reliability is performance as expected on

demand. Reliability usually follows or is a result of proper

asset integrity. Each company should have an asset integrity

and reliability policy, and each operating facility should have

a matching procedure.4. Contractor Management. Contractors, i.e., non-

company employees with specific skills who perform

specific targeted assignments, need to be educated and man-

aged so that they are fully aware of the hazards the facility

presents to them in their jobs and that they do not present

new unaddressed hazards to the facility.

Contractors must be educated about the facility, how

it works, what it does, and the hazards it presents to them

while doing their work. Conversely, the contractor must

educate the facility personnel about the hazards they may be

bringing onto the site and how their jobs might change the

existing hazards and established risk-management system.

Contract personnel should be held to the same safety

standard as company employees. Furthermore, the facility

and contracting companies should participate in annual per-

formance and safety reviews to exchange information and

ideas and resolve ongoing issues.

5. Training and Performance Assurance. This pillar is

the tool that gives employees and contractors the under-

standing they need to do their jobs safely. Training can be

general, such as what to do when the emergency alarm

sounds, or it can be specific, defining exactly how to operate

or repair a particular piece of equipment.

Unlike some undergraduate classes, where an exam score

of 80% is often considered passing, safety training requiresmastery ofall of the course content. Anything less than

100% is unacceptable and indicates a need for retraining.

Front-line operations personnel often make the best

trainers, because they can blend their expertise with their

real-world experiences.

6. Management of Change. MOC may be the most impor-

tant tool for keeping a facility safe. In the absence of change,

even unsafe operations eventually improve, simply because

the unsafe conditions manifest themselves and are addressed.

However, when changes are made, it may be virtually impos-

sible for such a natural reduction in risk to occur, because the

hazards are changing and they may be compounding.To manage change, it must be recognized, then analyzed

and characterized to determine its impact on risk.

Change is defined as any addition, process modifica-

tion, or substitute person or object that is not a replace-

ment-in-kind, i.e., that does not meet the design specifica-

tion (4). However, identifying change is not always easy,

because change can creep into daily practice unnoticed

until something goes wrong. Be alert for signs of such

changes. For example, if a member of the operations staff

begins a sentence with On my shift , this usually indi-

cates that all shifts do not operate the same way and that a

S Figure 5. The Manage Risk foundation block supports nine pillars,encompassing a range of critical management and operational practices.

SafeWorkPractices

AssetIntegrityandReliability

ContractorManagement

TrainingandPerformanceAssurance

ManagementofChange

OperationalReadiness

ConductofOperations

EmergencyManagement

OperatingProcedures

MANAGE RISK



6/8


change has occurred somewhere.

Engineers sometimes need to evaluate the impact of

change under stressful, hurried conditions. For instance, the

facility may have shut down because a key component failedand an exact replacement will not arrive for four days, so the

production department suggests substituting a similar part in

order to get the plant back up and running sooner. Before the

substitution is approved, the impacts of the change must be

thoroughly evaluated to ensure the safety of the employees

and the facility.

An effective MOC program involves five key steps (1):

1. Design, implement and maintain a dependable MOC

practice that is suitable for your facility

2. Identify potential change situations

3. Evaluate possible impacts if a change is made

4. Determine whether the requested change should be

approved, modified, or rejected

5. Complete the necessary follow-up activities, including

documentation, training, etc.

It is important to complete the appropriate paperwork

once a change has been approved. Take this opportunity to

determine whether this change will always be acceptable or

if this is just a one-time approval. If it will always be accept-

able, perhaps the design specification should be changed.

7. Operational Readiness. Any process that has been

shut down must undergo comprehensive inspection and test-

ing before it is restarted to ensure that the process is able to

handle hazardous materials and that it can resume manu-

facturing safely. This readiness inspection should reviewthe physical condition of the equipment, the training and

understanding of the operations personnel, the preparation

and readiness of the maintenance staff, and the integration of

all of these elements into the facilitys emergency response

plan. It should also verify that all permits are in place

and that the facility is in compliance with all applicable

regulations.

8. Conduct of Operations refers to the execution of oper-

ational and management tasks in a deliberate and structured

manner (e.g., per operating procedures, standards, codes,

etc.) by qualified personnel. Conduct of operations applies

to all work activities and includes all workers employeesand contractors. A clear chain of command, specific authori-

ties and responsibilities, and performance metrics in accor-

dance with approved procedures and work practices should

also be established(1).

9. Emergency Managementincludes: reviewing the

facilitys risks and developing possible scenarios that might

lead to an emergency situation; developing a structured

response plan and securing the resources needed to carry it

out; and conducting training and practice drills involving all

stakeholders. Effective emergency management ensures that

everyone at the facility is constantly aware of the risks and

knows what to do if something goes wrong. It also ensures

that all stakeholders are knowledgeable in what they are to

do and when to do it.

Learn from experience

Retired Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Vernon Law said,

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first,

the lesson afterwards. Learning from our own experience is

sometimes painful and slow. We must capture and apply the

lessons learned from our own experiences. This requires an

infrastructure to identify, document and disseminate learnings.

A less-painful way to learn is by observing and gather-

ing information and learnings from others. Networks for

sharing safety lessons, both formally and informally, are

very important. CCPS facilitates such sharing through

its publications, conferences, and courses, as well as its

Process Safety Incident Database (PSID) (5), in which it

collects data about incidents and shares that information

with participating companies.

The Learn from Experience foundation supports four

pillars (Figure 6).

1. Incident Investigation (6) involves tracking and ana-

lyzing safety incidents to discover their causes, both primary

and contributing. This includes:

a formal process for investigating incidents, including

staffing, performing, documenting, and tracking of process

safety incidents

implementing corrective measures so that identical or

similar incidents do not recur studying trends to identify recurring incidents.

For each incident, the inves-

tigation should discover:

what happened the

incident itself and contributing

events and conditions

how it happened the

critical events and conditions in

the incident sequence

why it happened the

management and organizational

factors that allowed the criticalevents and conditions to occur.

The fault tree analysis

technique described earlier can

be applied to incident investiga-

tion with the safety incident as

the top event. The investigators

IncidentInvestigation

Measure

mentandMetrics

Auditing

ManagementReview

andContinuousImprovement

LEARN FROM

EXPERIENCE

X Figure 6. The fourth foundation block Learn from Experience deals withgathering and disseminating informationand lessons learned from yourself andfrom others.



7/8


Back to Basics

repeatedly ask why, then catalog the answers and depict

them graphically.

A fault tree diagram is developed from the top down.

At each step in the analysis i.e.,

for each fault a set ofnecessary and sufficient lower-order conditions or events is

identified. Moving from one level to the next requires pass-

ing through a gate. This gate can be either an and gate, if

both events or conditions had to occur to cause the fault, or

an or gate, if either event or condition could have caused

the fault (7). The result is a graphical representation of the

sequence of events leading up to the incident.

2. Measurement and Metrics. This pillar deals with

keeping score. Metrics provide the information needed to

determine when and by how much mid-course corrections

need to be made. Measurements and metrics can be real-

time, lagging, or leading (810):

lagging metrics retrospective measures based on the

number of incidents that meet a threshold of severity

leading metrics forward-looking indicators of the

performance of key work processes, operating disciplines, or

layers of protection that prevent incidents

near-miss and other internal lagging metrics

indicators of less-severe incidents (those below a thresh-

old of severity), or unsafe conditions that triggered one or

more layers of protection.

Each company or facility should establish the parametersto be measured and tracked, the process for doing so, and the

means for reporting and responding to the data.

3. Auditing. It is essential that every facility looks for

and identifies weaknesses in its PSM systems. Safety audits

should be systematic and conducted by people who are not

involved with the process or employed by the organization

being audited.

The goal of an audit is to verify conformance to pre-

scribed standards. The auditing process starts with an

examination of the management systems in place, as well

as policies, procedures, and support resources. The audi-

tors then go out into the manufacturing areas to examine the

process and facility.

Weakness in management systems will typically

manifest themselves in the processing areas. Therefore,

corrective measures should be introduced to the manage-

ment system, since a facility may have multiple deficien-

cies that are all caused by a single failure in a management

ProcessSafetyCulture

ProcessKnowledgeManagement

SafeWorkPractices

As

setIntegrityandReliability

ContractorManagement

Training

andPerformanceAssurance

ManagementofChange

OperationalReadiness

ConductofOperations

EmergencyManagement

IncidentInvestigation

M

easurementandMetrics

Auditing

Management

ReviewandContinuousImprovement

Hazard

IdentificationandRiskAnalysis

OperatingProcedures

Pr

ocessSafetyCompetency

WorkforceInvolvement

StakeholderOutreach

CompliancewithStandards

COMMIT TO

PROCESS SAFETY

UNDERSTAND

HAZARDS

AND RISK

MANAGE RISK

PROCESS SAFETY

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

LEARN FROM

EXPERIENCE

S Figure 7. Taken together, the process safety management foundation blocks, along with the programs, tools, and practices built upon them, provide theinfrastructure for supporting a comprehensive and sturdy process safety management system.



8/8


system (11). When deficiencies are identified, action plans

to eliminate the deficiencies should be implemented and

tracked to completion. OSHAs PSM audit guidelines (12)

explain how to do this. 4. Management Review and Continuous Improvement.

This final pillar involves routine evaluation of existing PSM

systems to determine their effectiveness and/or improv-

ing effective systems even further. What was good enough

or even leading-edge last year may now be obsolete. The

management review and continuous improvement process

ensures that all systems are up to date and in harmony with

current needs and expectations.

Closing thoughts

When all four foundation blocks are in place commit-

ment to process safety, understanding of hazards and risks,

management of risk, and learning from experience they

firmly support the 20 programs, tools, and areas of exper-

tise that, in turn, support the roof an all-encompassing,

coordinated, risk-based process safety management system

(Figure 7).

ADRIAN L. SEPEDA, P. E., is president and owner of A. L. Sepeda ConsultingInc. (Plano, TX; E-mail: [email protected]). He started his consultingfirm after 33 years of service with Occidental Chemical Corp., wherehe was director of risk management. His background includes design,construction, utilities specialist, manufacturing, energy conservation,and a variety of process-safety-related activities and assignments. Hisfirm specializes in hazard identification and risk management, processsafety, and incident investigations. He provides consulting servicesto AIChEs CCPS. He also teaches process safety courses for AIChE,the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Texas A&Ms MaryKay OConnor Process Safety Center, and private clients. An EmeritusMember and Fellow of CCPS, he holds a BS in mechanical engineeringfrom Lamar Univ. and a P.E. license in Texas.

Literature Cited

1. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Risk

Based Process Safety, American Institute of Chemical Engi-

neers, New York, NY (2007).

2. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Hazard

Evaluation Procedures Third Edition, American Institute of

Chemical Engineers, New York, NY (2007).

3 Abrahamson, D., and A. L. Sepeda, Managing Security

Risks, Chem. Eng. Progress,105 (7), pp. 4147 (Sept. 2009).

4. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Manage-

ment of Change for Process Safety, American Institute of

Chemical Engineers, New York, NY (2008).

5. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Process Safety Incident

Database, www.psidnet.com.

6. Dyke, F. T., Conduct an Effective Incident Investigation,

Chem. Eng. Progress, 100 (9), pp. 3337 (Sept. 2004).

7. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Investigat-

ing Chemical Process Incidents Second Edition, American

Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY (2003).

8. Overton, T. and S. Berger, Process Safety: How Are You

Doing?, Chem. Eng. Progress, 104 (5), pp. 4043 (May 2008).

9. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Process Safety Leading

and Lagging Metrics You Dont Improve What You Dont

Measure, www.aiche.org/ccps/publications/psmetrics.aspx and

www/aiche.org/uploadedfiles/ccps/metrics/ccps_metrics%20

5.16.08.pdf, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New

York, NY (2008).

10. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Process

Safety Metrics, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New

York, NY (2009).

11. Sepeda, A. L., Auditing Process Safety Management in Four

Levels, Process Safety Progress, 28 (4), pp. 343346 (Dec. 2009).

12. U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration,

Standard for Hazardous Materials Process Safety Manage-

ment of Highly Hazardous Chemicals, 29 CFR 1910.119,

OSHA Instruction CPL 2-2.45A, Appendix A, PSM

Audit Guidelines www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.

show_document?p_table=DIRECTIVES&p_id=1558.

Further Reading

1. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Layer of Protection

Analysis Simplified Process Risk Assessment, AIChE, New

York, NY (2001).

CEP

http://www.aiche.org/redirect/index.aspx?source=CEPDisplayAd&date=0810&url=http://www.chenected.com

Understandn Process Safety_back to Basics

Documents

Transcript of Understandn Process Safety_back to Basics