Process Safety Management - Its not all technical!

A huge wave of interest in Process safety generally occurs after a major incident. The Jaipur oil fire,the BP oil spill, the Bhopal gas disaster court verdict and other incidents have sparked a huge interest in process safety.The management of process safety does require a lot of technical competence. However the MANAGEMENT of Process Safety requires just that - its about people. Just pause back a bit - Bhopal - 1984.... reasons for the incident - cost cutting without assessing risks, ignoring warnings,poor emergency response planning... the list goes on. One or more of the same reasons keep coming up for the recent incidents also! Technology has changed rapidly and we have Safety Integrity levels, redundant systems, more reliable equipment etc etc but still accidents happen. Why? Because wrong decisions are taken by a human being. Whatever administrative frameworks we design and provide for risk based process safety, one day a human being is going to override the administrative framework and take a decision that ultimately causes an incident. I was jokingly mentioning to participants of a process safety seminar that as long as people exist, the job of a process safety management consultant will be in demand!Have a safe day!