Process safety data management program based on HAZOP analysis and its application to an ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol plant

HAZOP analysis is a process hazard analysis method that has been widely applied both within and outside the chemical processing industries. This paper presents a design method for a process safety data management program for petrochemical plants based on HAZOP analysis and demonstrates the steps of application involved in building a process safety data management system for an ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol production plant. Firstly, the production data files and relevant documents of the plants should be classified and stored in the program database as reference documents and treatment schemes for coping with abnormal situations should be collected and summarized as guidance documents. Secondly, the HAZOP analysis method is employed to identify all the dangerous deviations possibly existing in the production process of the ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol plant. Then, the relationships among the deviations, the reference documents and the guidance documents should be considered and evaluated. Finally, each dangerous deviation will be given a corresponding reference document and guidance document. The reference documents and guidance documents stored in the expert system can be utilized to help operators solve the corresponding technical problems and cope with abnormal situations. The process safety data management program will contribute to the identification, analysis and resolution of operation problems. When an abnormal situation occurs, according to the deviations exhibited in the system, the necessary reference documents and guidance documents will be quickly consulted by the operators, and an appropriate decision will be made to address the abnormal situation. Therefore, by using the process safety data management program, plant security and human safety in the petrochemical industries will be improved.     

The digital representation of safety systems at “Seveso” plants and its potential for improving risk management

At Seveso plants, duty holders must have a complex system for assessing and managing risks. The pillars of this system are the safety report and the safety management system, with a number of underlying documents. The strength of the system is the high standardization of these documents. Regulations, standard codes and guidelines define content, structure and formats. The weakness is the high complexity. Managers and workers perceive documents as difficult to understand and far from actual operations. Major threats for the credibility of documents (and therefore for the safety systems) come from the continuous organizational and technical changes, which in a short time can make most documents obsolete; as well as by near misses, which continuously show the holes in safety systems. A big effort is required to follow up the plant changes and the near misses. In order to help safety managers, a new software has been developed. At Seveso plants, it has been possible build an integrated digital representation, because all documents are perfectly structured. This representation may be used both for updating the relevant documents after a change and to improve documents after a near miss or an accident. In this way, safety documents are always up to date and trustworthy and the huge knowledge, which is usually hidden inside safety documents, is clearly revealed and revived. The approach is basically “knowledge based” and the intention is to provide safety managers with an easy and simple tool. IRISonLine is a software that has been developed by ISPESL to provide safety managers of “Seveso” establishments with a tool for improving the management of change and of near misses.     

Development of a loading dock safety evaluation tool

INTRODUCTION: Companies that use forklifts to load and unload trucks at loading docks are well aware of the main danger associated with this type of activity (i.e., the possibility of the forklift falling or tipping over when the truck suddenly moves away from the dock). Even if various truck restraint measures can be implemented to reduce the possibility of this type of accident, a number of hazardous incidents that result in a forklift tipping over from a loading dock still do occur regularly in day-to-day activities. This situation has brought experts to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of different measures and systems depending on the context in which they are used. METHODS: The present study touched upon both the technical and the organizational aspects of the restraint measures that could have an impact on safety. Certain elements were examined very closely, especially the failure of mechanical devices and their relation to the environment in which they are used, as well as the systemic interaction between people and the various restraint measures in use in a given context. CONCLUSION: This article presents a safety evaluation tool regarding restraint measures or systems for trucks docked at loading platforms - a tool that, of course, would take into consideration both the specific contextual aspects related to the docking bay itself, and to the plant. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: This tool is designed to help companies choose the optimal safety measures to implement, while remaining realistic in terms of the technical and economic aspects of any given situation.     

Evaluation of a safety training program in three food service companies

Problem: Outcome measures for safety training effectiveness research often do not include measures such as occupational injury experience. Effectiveness mediators also receive sparse attention. Method: A new safety training curriculum was delivered to workers in a stratified random sample of food service facilities across three companies. A similar group of facilities received usual training. We collected post-test measures of demographic variables, safety knowledge, perceptions of transfer of training climate, and workers' compensation claim data for one year after the initial training activities. Results: Knowledge test scores were apparently higher in the new-training units than in the usual-training units. Some demographic variables were inconsistently associated with these differences. Evidence for reduction of the injury rate associated with the new training was observed from two companies but only approached significance for one company. A second company revealed a similar but non-significant trend. Knowledge scores were not significantly associated with lower injury rates. Discussion: We found evidence that safety training increases knowledge and reduces injuries. We found almost no evidence of effects of training effectiveness mediators, including no relationship between safety knowledge and injury experience. Methodological issues related to conducting a large study may have influenced these results. Impact on Industry: Although safety training leads to greater knowledge and, in some cases, reduced occupational injuries, the influence of mediating variables remains to be fully explained.     

Worker-centered investigation of issues with procedural systems: Findings from interviews with a representative sample of workers in high-risk process industries

Issues related to procedural systems have been found to contribute to incidents in many high-risk industries such as petrochemical, oil and gas, etc. While previous research has focused on understanding issues with procedural systems from the perspective of the workers (who are the end-users of procedures), most of this research suffers from samples that only include companies with programs focused on improving safety by improving procedures. These companies may have inherent differences in their safety practices and thus the experiences of these workers may not completely represent all workers’ experiences in this domain. The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the thoughts and perceptions from a representative and broad sample of workers concerning procedure use and purpose. To improve the generalizability of previous findings, interviews were conducted with workers from a broad range of high-risk process industries to investigate issues related to procedure adherence that may be present in companies not currently implementing. Findings from a qualitative data analysis provide support for the generalizability of issues previously discovered, such as: more experience workers being more likely to deviate; procedure quality being inconsistent; and the procedure revision process being problematic. However additional prominent issues were found as well. Most importantly, this study found that adherence to procedures is often motivated by potential liability issues instead of genuine concerns for safety in organizations and many deviations from procedures were due to pressure from immediate supervisors. These findings suggest a relationship between the effectiveness/quality of procedural systems and the safety climate of the organization or work unit.     

A survey-based system for safety measurement and improvement

PROBLEM:A task force sought to develop a method for safety measurement that is reliable and valid and provides a framework for improvement efforts. METHOD: Over a 10-year period, through working in a chemical company with about 6,000 employees and over 50 plants, the authors researched the use of employee surveys to measure safety and as a diagnostic tool for improvement efforts. RESULTS: The statistical studies indicate that this survey, which evolved from the Minnesota Safety Perception Survey, is both reliable and valid as a measurement tool. The survey measures important components of the management system including (a) management's demonstration of commitment to safety, (b) education and knowledge of the workforce, (c) effectiveness of the supervisory process, and (d) employee involvement and commitment. This study also describes anecdotal evidence that the diagnostic element of the survey enables the development of effective action plans to improve safety performance. This evidence includes ratings of the process by plant managers who have used it. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: The survey and related methods have helped to improve safety performance in several companies.     

Successful health and safety management. The contribution of management audit

Auditing the health and safety performance of organisations is now recognised as an essential ingredient of successful health and safety management systems. The audit protocol — the question sets—is, however, only one of a number of factors which determine the end value of auditing. The competence of auditors, their insights into the organisations subject to scrutiny, their independence and the feedback and decision making processes that help organisations to review and change the way they operate are equally important. Much of the process of auditing needs to be systematic, methodical and scientific. However the art of the informed analysis and inspired interpretation can also add value to the total management process. Auditing alone will not prevent accidents and injuries. Health and safety management systems do that. Auditing seeks to assess the efficiency effectiveness of the systems. Informed management action must then follow, to maintain and improve them. This paper outlines five essential components of health and safety management; policy making, organising, planning, performance measurement and review which provide the environment in which effective auditing systems operate. It is derived from the work of HSE's Accident Prevention Advisory Unit and the advice published in “Successful Health and Safety Management” in 1991.     

Pushing and pulling: an assessment tool for occupational health and safety practitioners

A tool has been developed for supporting practitioners when assessing manual pushing and pulling operations based on an initiative by two global companies in the manufacturing industry. The aim of the tool is to support occupational health and safety practitioners in risk assessment and risk management of pushing and pulling operations in the manufacturing and logistics industries. The tool is based on a nine-multiplier equation that includes a wide range of factors affecting an operator’s health risk and capacity in pushing and pulling. These multipliers are based on psychophysical, physiological and biomechanical studies in combination with judgments from an expert group consisting of senior researchers and ergonomists. In order to consider usability, more than 50 occupational health and safety practitioners (e.g., ergonomists, managers, safety representatives and production personnel) participated in the development of the tool. An evaluation by 22 ergonomists supports that the push/pull tool is user friendly in general.     

Readability of OHS documents – A comparison of surface characteristics of OHS text between some languages

Readability of documents, including occupational health and safety (OHS) documents, is a key factor in their adoption and application. The author uses two measures of English readability favoured by the US for health communication, and in defense communications respectively. Also included is the use of measures for Chinese, Japanese, Malay/Indonesian, and Spanish. One measure, McLaughlin’s (1969) SMOG formula, was also trialed on documents in five languages other than English. The tests included parallel texts from China, Europe, Malaysia and the US, and also parallel texts in English, Chinese and Spanish, and on like topics (except for Turkish where available choices were limited). On the data obtained, it is suggested that the SMOG test with modified criteria may be applicable to Finnish, Hungarian, Malay, Spanish and possibly Turkish. Readability of the OHS documents on the measures used varied quite widely, both within and between languages. To put this in context, some internationally comparable literacy results for mid high school students are presented.     

Dynamic failure assessment of an ammonia storage unit: A case study

Chemical Process Industries usually contain a diverse inventory of hazardous chemicals and complex systems required to perform process operations such as storage, separation, reaction, compression etc. The complex interactions between the equipment make them vulnerable to catastrophic accidents. Risk and failure assessment provide engineers with an intuitive tool for decision making in the operation of such plants. Abnormal events and near-miss situations occur regularly during the operation of a system. Accident Sequence Precursors (ASP) can be used to demonstrate the real-time operating condition of a plant. Dynamic Failure Assessment (DFA) methodology is based on Bayesian statistical methods incorporates ASP data to revise the generic failure probabilities of the systems during its operational lifetime.In this paper, DFA methodology is applied on an ammonia storage unit in a specialized chemical industry. Ammonia is stored in cold storage tanks as liquefied gas at atmospheric pressure. These tanks are susceptible to failures due to various abnormal conditions arising due process failures.Tank failures due to three such abnormal conditions are considered. Variation of the failure probability of the safety systems is demonstrated. The authors use ASP data collected from plant specific sources and safety expert judgement. The failure probabilities of some safety systems concerned show considerable deviation from the generic values. The method helps to locate the components which have undergone more degradation over the period and hence must be paid attention to. In addition, a Bayesian predictive model has been used to predict the number of abnormal events in the next time interval. The user-friendly and intuitive nature of the tool makes it appropriate for application in safety assessment reports in process industries.     

民航安全信息管理能力评价体系研究

对民航单位的安全信息管理能力进行科学有效的评价有助于提高其安全信息管理水平,进而提升安全绩效。借鉴已有信息管理研究成果,提出基于资源、过程及效果综合视角的民航安全信息管理能力模型,并结合民航单位调研访谈构建了由58个指标构成的初始指标集,通过指标聚类、样本聚类、变异系数3种方法筛选得到32个代表性指标。利用因子分析法、专家打分法、变异系数确定各指标权重,最后通过安全信息管理能力的模拟值与安全现状的相关分析验证各方法的有效性,并确定了评价指标体系。     

An application of data mining tools for the study of shipping safety in restricted waters

The effectiveness of the enforcement of the ISM-Code and the examination of its role in the distribution of causes of shipping accidents between human and non-human error was studied. All accidents involving Greek-flagged ships from 1995 to 2006, a time-scale which spans over the pre- and post-ISM period in navigational regions of restricted waters, were analyzed.The accident data was processed through a classification tree analysis which enabled the classification of various accident factors. The analysis revealed that although the human error maintained its position as the dominant factor in shipping accidents, there is also substantial evidence in support of the ISM-Code effective control over shipping accidents during the post-ISM period. The implementation of the ISM-Code led to an overall reduction of human-induced accidents in total. Furthermore, in terms of location, the ISM-Code improved the human-induced accident record within restricted waters.Conclusively, the ISM-Code constitutes an effective policy measure for shipping safety. The results of the classification tree analysis reported in the present work can be used by decision makers in companies and international organizations to build knowledge-based expert systems and augment their information in the field of safety policy and management.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of a logger safety training program

INTRODUCTION: Logger safety training programs are rarely, if ever, evaluated as to their effectiveness in reducing injuries. METHOD: Workers' compensation claim rates were used to evaluate the effectiveness of a logger safety training program, the West Virginia Loggers' Safety Initiative (LSI). RESULTS: There was no claim rate decline detected in the majority (67%) of companies that participated in all 4 years of the LSI. Furthermore, their rate did not differ from the rest of the WV logging industry that did not participate in the LSI. Worker turnover was significantly related to claim rates; companies with higher turnover of employees had higher claim rates. Companies using feller bunchers to harvest trees at least part of the time had a significantly lower claim rate than companies not using them. Companies that had more inspections per year had lower claim rates. CONCLUSIONS: High injury rates persist even in companies that receive safety training; high employee turnover may affect the efficacy of training programs. The logging industry should be encouraged to facilitate the mechanization of logging tasks, to address barriers to employee retention, and to increase the number of in-the-field performance monitoring inspections. Impact on industry There are many states whose logger safety programs include only about 4-8 hours of safe work practices training. These states may look to West Virginia's expanded training program (the LSI) as a model for their own programs. However, the LSI training may not be reaching loggers due to the delay in administering training to new employees and high levels of employee turnover. Regardless of training status, loggers' claim rates decline significantly the longer they work for a company. It may be that high injury rates in the state of West Virginia would be best addressed by finding ways to encourage and facilitate companies to become more mechanized in their harvesting practices, and to increase employee tenure. Increasing the number of yearly performance inspections may also be a venue to reduce claim rates. Future research could investigate in better detail the working conditions of West Virginia loggers and identify barriers to job tenure, particularly for workers whose primary job task is chainsaw operation. A larger-scale study of the effect of performance monitoring inspections on claim rates is also warranted.     

Mapping safety culture attributes with integrity management program to achieve assessment goals: A framework for oil and gas pipelines industry

Introduction: The safety of oil and gas pipelines is an increasing concern for the public, government regulators, and the industry. A safety management system cannot be efficient without having an effective integrity management program (IMP) and a strong safety culture. IMP is a formal document (policies, planning, scheduling, and technical processes) while safety culture is a measure of views, beliefs, and traditions about safety. For regulatory authorities and O&G companies, assessing the effectiveness of both the IMP and safety culture through regulatory audits is a daunting task with indistinct findings. Method: An integrated framework based on regulatory audits is developed to assess the maturity of safety culture based on IMP efficacy through risk-based approach by using failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA). The framework focuses on three distinct aspects, the probability of failure occurrence in case of the non-compliance of regulatory and program requirements, severity of non-compliance, and effectiveness of the corrective actions. Results: Program requirements and performance indicators are translated into assessment questions which are grouped into 18 IMP components. Subsequently, these components are linked with four safety culture attributes. Sensitivity analysis revealed that four IMP components, i.e., organizational roles and responsibilities, policy and commitment, risk assessment, and training and competency, significantly affect the safety culture maturity level. Conclusions: Individual assessment of IMP and safety culture in O&G sector consumes extensive time and efforts in the auditing process. The framework facilitates the process by pursuing common criteria between IMP and safety culture. The O&G companies and regulator can prioritize the improvement plans and guidelines using the framework's findings. Practicalapplications:The integrated framework developed in this research will improve the existing assessment mechanism in O&G companies. The framework has been effectively implemented on a case of 17 upstream O&G pipeline-operating companies in the province of British Columbia, Canada.     

Are automatic systems the future of motorcycle safety? A novel methodology to prioritize potential safety solutions based on their projected effectiveness

Objective: Motorcycle riders are involved in significantly more crashes per kilometer driven than passenger car drivers. Nonetheless, the development and implementation of motorcycle safety systems lags far behind that of passenger cars. This research addresses the identification of the most effective motorcycle safety solutions in the context of different countries.

Methods: A knowledge-based system of motorcycle safety (KBMS) was developed to assess the potential for various safety solutions to mitigate or avoid motorcycle crashes. First, a set of 26 common crash scenarios was identified from the analysis of multiple crash databases. Second, the relative effectiveness of 10 safety solutions was assessed for the 26 crash scenarios by a panel of experts. Third, relevant information about crashes was used to weigh the importance of each crash scenario in the region studied. The KBMS method was applied with an Italian database, with a total of more than 1 million motorcycle crashes in the period 2000–2012.

Results: When applied to the Italian context, the KBMS suggested that automatic systems designed to compensate for riders' or drivers' errors of commission or omission are the potentially most effective safety solution. The KBMS method showed an effective way to compare the potential of various safety solutions, through a scored list with the expected effectiveness of each safety solution for the region to which the crash data belong. A comparison of our results with a previous study that attempted a systematic prioritization of safety systems for motorcycles (PISa project) showed an encouraging agreement.

Conclusions: Current results revealed that automatic systems have the greatest potential to improve motorcycle safety. Accumulating and encoding expertise in crash analysis from a range of disciplines into a scalable and reusable analytical tool, as proposed with the use of KBMS, has the potential to guide research and development of effective safety systems. As the expert assessment of the crash scenarios is decoupled from the regional crash database, the expert assessment may be reutilized, thereby allowing rapid reanalysis when new crash data become available. In addition, the KBMS methodology has potential application to injury forecasting, driver/rider training strategies, and redesign of existing road infrastructure.     

Air Traffic Management accident risk. Part 2: Repairing the deficiencies of ESARR4

This is a critique of ESARR4 and its main supporting documents. ESARR4 is the Eurocontrol Safety Regulatory Requirement Number 4 [Eurocontrol safety regulatory requirement ESARR4, Edition 1.0., Eurocontrol, Safety Regulation Commission, Brussels, 2001]: ‘Risk assessment and mitigation in ATM’, ATM standing for Air Traffic Management. It is demonstrated that ESARR4 and its supporting documents are defective. There is a lack of clarity about responsibilities for ATM safety. The claims ESARR4 etc. make for its proposed methodologies are overstated—not supported by sound evidence from real world hazard analysis. Serious negative effects from this defective document include mis-allocation of scarce safety resources and the diversion of attention away from real safety improvements—wasteful of regulators’ and managers’ time. Suggestions are made for repairing these deficiencies. The most important underlying change would be a refocusing on practical safety assessment based on methods that have already demonstrated their merits.     

A methodology for enhancing the reliability of expert system applications in probabilistic risk assessment

In highly complex industries, capturing and employing expert systems is significantly important to an organization's success considering the advantages of knowledge-based systems. The two most important issues within the expert system applications in risk and reliability analysis are the acquisition of domain experts' professional knowledge and the reasoning and representation of the knowledge that might be expressed. The first issue can be correctly handled by employing a heterogeneous group of experts during the expert knowledge acquisition processes. The members of an expert panel regularly represent different experiences and knowledge. Subsequently, this diversity produces various sorts of information which may be known or unknown, accurate or inaccurate, and complete or incomplete based on its cross-functional and multidisciplinary nature. The second issue, as a promising tool for knowledge reasoning, still suffers from lack of deficiencies such as weight and certainty factor, and are insufficient to accurately represent complex rule-based expert systems. The outputs in current expert system applications in probabilistic risk assessment could not accurately represent the increasingly complex knowledge-based systems. The reason is the lack of certainty and self-assurance of experts when they are expressing their opinions. In this paper, a novel methodology is presented based on the concept of Z-numbers to overcome this issue. A case study in a high-tech process industry is provided in detail to demonstrate the application and feasibility of the proposed methodology.     

Process chemicals – An ever present concern during plant shutdowns

Chemical accidents during process plant shutdowns may have severe consequences. In spite of this, the safety management systems in place in many companies still mainly cover the normal operations and little explicitly addresses the maintenance shutdown and plant start-up phases. A Finnish research project found that the level of safety during shutdowns is more closely related to the skills of key individuals at the plants and less due to the systematic safety management system of the companies. A guidebook on the topic in conjunction with tools to improve the situation were developed during the project in order to help the companies improve their documentation associated with chemical safety during shutdowns.     

Fire and explosion assessment on oil and gas floating production storage offloading (FPSO): An effective screening and comparison tool

Fires and explosions have been identified as major potential hazards for Oil and Gas Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) installations and pose risk to personnel, assets, and the environment. Current fire and explosion assessment (FEA) tools require physical effect modeling software and follows standards from API, ISO, and engineering practices. However, the tools are not specific to any particular system such as an FPSO, and do not provide comprehensive guidance for safety engineers to perform FEA.This paper discusses the development of a screening and comparison tool for FEA on FPSOs and the incorporation of an expert system into the tool. The results are computerized using MS Excel/VBA to provide a structured and comprehensive assessment on each equipment and module handling natural gas, crude oil, methanol and diesel on FPSO topsides.This tool features built-in calculations for jet and pool fire size estimation for gas/liquid releases, and the ability to perform Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) to specify the personnel and equipment risk for varying leak sizes and process conditions. Control and recovery measures are incorporated as an expert system based on report findings, engineering practices, and relevant standards. Bowtie analysis is applied in the tool to define detailed control and recovery measures for the FPSO based on the incident scenarios. An explosion assessment is performed by incorporating physical effect modeling software results.Unique features provided in the tool include fire and radiation contour mapping on an FPSO layout to help determine personnel and equipment risk more accurately and fire pump sizing that can be used to verify the amount of water deluge system required to mitigate fires and explosions. In addition, flexibility of data input (process data, failure rate data, etc.) and user interfaces assist safety engineers to screen and compare process alternatives, check design quality, and evaluate design options at any design stage.     

石化企业安全文化建设

随着国企改制的不断深化,安全管理显现出许多薄弱环节,尤其是在能源勘探开发过程中发生的重特大事故,不断给安全生产发出了黄牌警告.近年来,多种因素导致员工"三违",造成恶性事故不断,其原因是由于企业缺乏安全文化氛围和员工缺乏必要的自我安全保护意识,盲目蛮干导致事故高发.因此,加强企业安全文化建设是提高全员安全意识的一种行之有效的方法,并可以进一步促进和提高员工的自我安全保护意识和安全技术素质.本文阐述了企业安全文化建设在新形势下的重要意义,并针对石化企业开展安全文化建设提出几点建议.