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June 11, 2010

Parkinsons Law for Process Safety Management

I have formulated Parkinsons Law for Process Safety Management:
1.If there is an incident in one plant, rest assured that the same incident will reoccur after 5 years!
2. If there is an incident in a plant that belongs to a large group of plants, rest assured that it will not be shared with others in the group.
3. If there is pressure on profits, the first thing to get compromised will be process safety.
4. If the person at the top does not have a perception of process safety risks,process safety will get compromised, no matter whatever systems are implemented!
5. Process near misses will continue to be missed till a major incident occurs.
A OSHA representative has testified before the senate subcommittee on safety in energy industries. The following are quoted from his testimony:
"In the wake of the Texas City explosion, OSHA initiated a national emphasis program with the goal of inspecting the process safety management programs of almost all of the nation's oil refineries. "I am sorry to report that the results of this NEP are deeply troubling. Not only are we finding a significant lack of compliance during our inspections, but time and again, our inspectors are finding the same violations in multiple refineries, including those with common ownership, and sometimes even in different units in the same refinery. This is a clear indication that essential safety lessons are not being communicated within the industry and often not even within a single corporation or facility. The old adage that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it is as true in the refinery industry as it is elsewhere. So we are particularly disturbed to find even refineries that have already suffered serious incidents or received major OSHA citations making the same mistakes again.
"Consistently throughout the course of the Refinery NEP, we have found that more than 70 percent of the violations we are finding involve failures to comply with the same four essential requirements:
"Process Safety Information: Frequent process safety information violations include failure to document compliance with Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices, (or RAGAGEP, which consists primarily of industry technical guidance on safe engineering, operating or maintenance activities); failure to keep process safety information up to date; and failure to document the design of emergency pressure relief systems.
"Process Hazards Analysis: We are finding many failures to conduct complete process hazards analyses. Often, there are significant shortcomings in attention to human factors and facility siting, and in many cases employers have failed to address process hazard analysis findings and recommendations in a timely manner, or, even to address them at all.
"Operating Procedures: Operating procedures citations are for failure to establish and follow procedures for key operating phases, such as start-ups and emergency shutdowns, and for using inaccurate or out-of-date procedures.
"Mechanical Integrity: This is a particular concern given the aging of refineries in the United States. Violations found by OSHA typically include failure to perform inspections and tests, and failure to correct deficiencies in a timely manner. In the Delek Refinery case mentioned above, for example, OSHA discovered multiple substandard pipes being operated, and the naphtha pipe whose explosion killed two workers and hospitalized three others had already ruptured once within the past few years.
"I have been deeply frustrated by these results.Over a year ago, we sent a letter to every petroleum refinery manager in the country, informing them of these frequently cited hazards. Yet, a year later, our inspectors are still finding the same problems in too many facilities. Clearly, much more work must be done to ensure effective chemical process safety.

Read the whole testimony in this link.

1 comment:

  1. The statement is true for factories in our country also, as observed by the OSHA official in his country. Violations occur repeatedly and most of them are known already or were experienced. On this account, we can be happy that we are at par with the most advanced country w.r.t. process safety (in terms of violations). We do not want to learn. Nobody can help a person, if he wants to jump into fire. A safety expert said w.r.t accidents, "tution fees is already paid by somebody, let us learn freely". We do not want to learn out of charity. We want to pay and still do not want to learn. May GOD bless these people and the insurance companies.

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