7

Golden Rulesof Successful

Process Safety Management

Improving safety for organisations involves more than technological solutions; understanding processes and plant interactions are equally
important. Neglecting widely established rules can lead to a major accident, which could have easily been prevented in the first place.
Here are the 7 golden rules every engineer/manager should be aware of:

Always be looking for hazards

Dont let organisational change

Safety assessments such as hazard and operability

affect safety
studies (HAZOPS) identify hazards and quantify their
High-performance organizations of the type needed to
respective risk. A hidden deficiency in this process can
manage high-integrity safety systems are not at a natural
result in risks that are underestimated so that the
state; the laws of entropy apply. Organizations undergo
applied Independent Protection Layers (IPLs) are
continuous change, whether desired or not. The
inadequate. A hazard can be missed or
organization affects the other listed modes in positive
incorrectly assessed if the team lacks
and negative ways, which means it contributes to a
Be mindful of when to
key technical, operating or
possible accident. A seemingly subtle change in
integrate humans into the process
maintenance expertise.
priorities, staffing, training, etc. can significantly
A well-designed system, organization or
affect process safety as it interacts with
procedure integrates humans into processes where
other listed modes.
they are known to perform well, and it avoids or

Establish clear data

exchange protocol early on

Todays typical large-scale engineering

projects have major teams that interact
with many organizations. As such, thousands
of documents are created; information is
communicated through many different media
and quality check process is constantly
challenged. Undetected errors can occur if the
data exchange protocols are not well defined
or managed.

minimizes activities that humans are known

to perform less reliably. If this is not the
case, the expected error rate will be
Be aware of technologys
higher, and the resulting errors may be
challenges
overt, hidden or unforeseen. Human error
New technology and new designs often
in any type of process or activity
create unforeseen challenges. When
increases when humans are under
the industry embraced open systems,
tasked, over tasked or placed under
the Microsoft Operating System became
stress.
a standard component in many control
systems. The unforeseen risk was an
ongoing urgency to install frequent
software patches to correct security holes
and software stability problems. This and
similar are blind-spots that can degrade
the system.

Be clear. Be very clear

By words, actions and examples,

management and safety leaders demonstrate
their expectations. Subordinates interpret
this message and bias their actions and
attitudes accordingly. Given the challenges
of communications in large and complex
organizations, a few misunderstood
words or an ambiguous or conflicting
message may degrade the process safety
attitude of employees.

Find the root cause in accident

investigations

Past theory and practices for accident investigations took

an approach that often cited operator error as the root
cause. The new theory, which takes a much wider view, will
often trace the root cause to a management failure or a
failure of system in which humans function. Those
applying the old approach are not aware of where
the true weakness in their systems exists, so
similar accidents may reoccur.

Learn how to implement an optimal strategy for better resource utilisation and safer operations at
Process Safety Management Asia 2014. To attend the conference, email enquiry@iqpc.com.sg or call +65 6722 9388.
Visit www.processsafetyasia.com for more information.
References: Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies New York, Basic Books Inc., 1999. I Tom Shephard and David Hansen,
IEC 61511 Implementation The Execution Challenge Control magazine, May 2010. I Peter Bullemer and Doug Metzger, CCPS Process Safety Metric Review:
Considerations from an ASM Perspective ASM Consortium Metrics Work Group, May 23, 2008. I Nancy Bartels, Worst Fears Realized Control Engineering
magazine, September 24, 2010. I Sydney Decker, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error, Surrey UK, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., reprint 2010.

Adapted from Process Safety: Blind Spots and Red Flags by: Tom Shephard, CAP, PMP,
Mustang Engineering, LP as Published in Hydrocarbon Processing, Copyright: Mustang
Engineering