Showing posts with label Organisational Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organisational Culture. Show all posts
November 14, 2021
Cultivating a Safety Culture Amid Constant Change
Cultivating a Safety Culture Amid Constant Change: Developing a power plant safety culture takes time and constant effort, but the payoff is priceless, safety leaders at three major power companies said
November 6, 2021
Principles-Based Operations: A Military-Proven Method Part II
Principles-Based Operations: A Military-Proven Method Part II: Part II of Principles-Based Operations focuses on level of knowledge, forceful backup, questioning attitude, procedural compliance, and formality.
November 2, 2021
Principles-Based Operations: A Military-Proven Method Part I
Principles-Based Operations: A Military-Proven Method Part I: Many organizations have begun applying operational principles used with great success in the millitary. The foundation for postive outcomes is integrity.
July 21, 2020
August 18, 2019
August 10, 2019
July 18, 2019
June 21, 2019
March 4, 2019
July 16, 2018
June 24, 2018
No excuse for cutting corners on corrosion in downstream plants
No excuse for cutting corners on corrosion in downstream plants: The risks to safety and revenue associated with corrosion in refineries and petrochemical plants are too high to ignore. Phil Yule, Cosasco, explains.
May 13, 2018
Making Safety Decisions without a Blindfold
Making Safety Decisions without a Blindfold: Mike Neill of Petrotechnics discusses overcoming barriers to safety.
March 22, 2018
March 18, 2018
Ghosts of Bhopal?
In
a CSB investigation report about a Nitrous oxide explosion in 2016 that
killed an employee, the following causes were listed in the report.
Many of the causes identified by the CSB are identical to the causes of
the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. Can you identify some of them?
1. XXXXXX did not evaluate inherently safer design options that could have eliminated the need for the pump;
2. XXXXXX never evaluated its process to identify and control process safety hazards;
3. XXXXXX did not effectively apply the hierarchy of controls to the safeguards that the company used to prevent a possible nitrous oxide explosion;
4. XXXXXX installed equipment that increased the likelihood of an explosion without performing a management of change safety review;
5. XXXXXX did not apply an essential industry safety instrumentation standard, or key elements of a voluntary safe storage and handling standard, both of which are intended to prevent nitrous oxide explosions;
6. XXXXXX safeguards that failed to prevent the explosion include an automatic shutdown safety control and an explosion prevention device;
7. The automatic shutdown safety control XXXXXX relied on required the XXXXXX worker to be physically present – and located immediately adjacent to the trailer truck – in order to bypass the shutdown at a time when an explosion was most likely to occur; and
8. The XXXXXX explosion prevention device – a flame arrestor – was never tested or inspected to ensure it could protect workers from an explosion.
9. XXXXXX failed to apply lessons from previous nitrous oxide explosions; and
10. XXXXXX did not provide its Cantonment facility with an appropriate level of technical staffing support.
1. XXXXXX did not evaluate inherently safer design options that could have eliminated the need for the pump;
2. XXXXXX never evaluated its process to identify and control process safety hazards;
3. XXXXXX did not effectively apply the hierarchy of controls to the safeguards that the company used to prevent a possible nitrous oxide explosion;
4. XXXXXX installed equipment that increased the likelihood of an explosion without performing a management of change safety review;
5. XXXXXX did not apply an essential industry safety instrumentation standard, or key elements of a voluntary safe storage and handling standard, both of which are intended to prevent nitrous oxide explosions;
6. XXXXXX safeguards that failed to prevent the explosion include an automatic shutdown safety control and an explosion prevention device;
7. The automatic shutdown safety control XXXXXX relied on required the XXXXXX worker to be physically present – and located immediately adjacent to the trailer truck – in order to bypass the shutdown at a time when an explosion was most likely to occur; and
8. The XXXXXX explosion prevention device – a flame arrestor – was never tested or inspected to ensure it could protect workers from an explosion.
9. XXXXXX failed to apply lessons from previous nitrous oxide explosions; and
10. XXXXXX did not provide its Cantonment facility with an appropriate level of technical staffing support.
March 1, 2018
And then there is a fatality!
How many of you have experienced good safety records when suddenly a
fatality occurs in a non process area? Well, you have? The management of
Process Safety and Occupational Health and Safety in a chemical plant
have a few common elements like incident investigation, work permits,
training, emergency planning and response etc. However there is one most
important underlying foundation for both- it is a good safety culture.
Recently, a large chemical plant experienced two fatalities within a
span of two months. Both the fatalities were not in a process area
(covered process as defined in PSM) but were road accidents within the
factory complex. One of them could have been prevented if the driver was
wearing a seat belt. I had visited the plant a month before the fatal
road accident (driver without seat belt) and had observed that in the
township (where employees reside) of that plant, many of the staff were
not wearing crash helmets when riding a two wheeler or were not buckling
up when driving a car. This is the problem. You cannot throw away your
rules just because you have come out of the factory and entered the
township! Safety Culture should be developed assiduously by management
both in and outside the plant. Breaking safety rules outside a plant
will carry the same behavior inside the plant and other employees will
start emulating this. After a fatality, there is always a lot of
introspection, but don't forget the basics - Management staff must walk
the talk both inside and outside the plant. Plain and simple.
January 9, 2018
Is your organization pulling people out of safety training or safety meetings?
In my long process safety consulting journey, I have seen really
committed organizations who demonstrate their commitment to safety as
well as those who don't really walk the talk. In one of the plants where
I was implementing PSM, the Vice President of manufacturing came to the
each of my training sessions 10 minutes before the sessions were
starting even though he was not required to be part of that training
session. He would stay for the first 15 minutes of every session and
then leave. Initially, there were latecomers to the meeting, but when
word went around that the Vice President himself is attending the start
of each session, people started coming on time. In over 20 training
sessions I had conducted, he never missed one. This was his way of
demonstrating his commitment and operational discipline.
In a diametrically opposite example, I had started implementing PSM in a medium scale organization that was very hierarchical in nature and was run by the top boss ("Owner"). In the first session with top management, the top boss thought that it was not important for him to demonstrate his commitment because he had other "important" things to do, I tried explaining to him the importance of his commitment and involvement, but when things did not improve, I stopped the project.
In another organization, the bosses of the Vice President who was attending my sessions kept on sending messages to him to contact them to discuss some organizational issue, while the planned session was on, even though they knew he was in a process safety session. I tell such organizations.....get your act together or do not implement PSM at all. It will be a guaranteed failure!
In a diametrically opposite example, I had started implementing PSM in a medium scale organization that was very hierarchical in nature and was run by the top boss ("Owner"). In the first session with top management, the top boss thought that it was not important for him to demonstrate his commitment because he had other "important" things to do, I tried explaining to him the importance of his commitment and involvement, but when things did not improve, I stopped the project.
In another organization, the bosses of the Vice President who was attending my sessions kept on sending messages to him to contact them to discuss some organizational issue, while the planned session was on, even though they knew he was in a process safety session. I tell such organizations.....get your act together or do not implement PSM at all. It will be a guaranteed failure!
January 5, 2018
Leadership and Process Safety Management
Every now and then we read about incidents of loss of containment even in reputed companies. Why do these incidents happen?
The incidents that I have investigated brings out two categories of leadership - one who think that once a PSM system is implemented, their role is over and the system should prevent incidents. The other is "We did not know this was happening or this risk was being taken at the plant".
Both are leadership issues that form the crux of why incidents continue to occur.
A PSM system is not like a light bulb....switch it on and no incidents occur! It requires top leadership on a daily basis to send the right signals to ensure the PSM system works as intended.
The leadership should also be competent in understanding the process safety risks and should spend quality time to seek and ensure that these risks are controlled on a day to day basis. PSM dashboards are good but can be more useful if leadership does a deep dive into the indicators. The dashboards can also lull you into a sense of complacency if the right indicators are not chosen.
Last, but not the least....Leaders should not review the PSM system AFTER an incident occurs but must proactively understand whether process safety risks are controlled on a day to day basis.
The incidents that I have investigated brings out two categories of leadership - one who think that once a PSM system is implemented, their role is over and the system should prevent incidents. The other is "We did not know this was happening or this risk was being taken at the plant".
Both are leadership issues that form the crux of why incidents continue to occur.
A PSM system is not like a light bulb....switch it on and no incidents occur! It requires top leadership on a daily basis to send the right signals to ensure the PSM system works as intended.
The leadership should also be competent in understanding the process safety risks and should spend quality time to seek and ensure that these risks are controlled on a day to day basis. PSM dashboards are good but can be more useful if leadership does a deep dive into the indicators. The dashboards can also lull you into a sense of complacency if the right indicators are not chosen.
Last, but not the least....Leaders should not review the PSM system AFTER an incident occurs but must proactively understand whether process safety risks are controlled on a day to day basis.
December 28, 2017
September 27, 2017
September 25, 2017
Enforcement of rules in PSM
What does this have to do with process safety management? Many companies do have a carrot and stick policy towards PSM but I have also noticed that the stick is not used properly and effectively many times. Unless employees (from the top to the bottom) observe discipline in manufacturing, accidents in process industries will continue to occur!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)