Understand the basics of chemical safety while managing change

The International Program on chemical safety has a good basic write up on chemical safety - corrosive materials, incompatibilities, materials of constructions, storage and effects of chemicals on concrete. Many times, we tend to forget the basics when managing change, that later results in an incident.
Read the article in this link.

Ammonia and thermal expansion

For my friends in the ammonia industry, let me remind you ammonia can also kill you in another way apart from exposure to it. 25 years ago, I witnessed a large leak due to thermal expansion of liquid ammonia which was not understood by the technical services team of the plant who had carried out an in house modification. The liquid ammonia which was blocked in, expanded due to thermal expansion and a pressure gauge in the line gave away, rocketing the gauge and causing a large leak. The flying projectile could have killed people.Airgas has published a technical bulletin about ammonia, which all personnel in ammonia facilities should read. Read it in this link.

Temporary solutions - permanent problems!

Management of change is the most difficult element to implement as it requires a lot of commitment to make it work. Very often, temporary changes can have a devastating effect. A safety officer mentioned to me about a temporary electrical cable that was laid across an internal road. To protect the cable, it was inserted through a metal pipe. The cable was energised and work was going on. However, the a portion of the pipe was damaged and a piece of the metal was actually cutting into the cable everytime a vehicle moved over the pipe. Luckily an alert fitter noticed this and an incident was avoided. Do not take the temporary route or shortcuts in process safety.

Read about a boiler explosion that occurred due to a temporary change in this link.

Cars can be recalled but Chemical Plants cannot!

The papers are full of news stories about the car recalls for certain models by Toyota and Honda due to design glitches. In one incident, it was reported that a boy was killed when a fire occurred due to water entering a power window motor. In chemical plants, do we have the luxury of recalls? A design mistake may show up in a devastating way, killing many people. In todays plants, modifications are carried out for capacity increase, energy saving etc. But how sure are you that these modifications do not have design glitches? Cutting costs at the design stage has serious repercussions for process safety. Investment in good design costs money, but cutting costs in design may cost lives. Cars can be recalled but plants cannot. Does your organization have the capability for designing changes or modifications? Are you keeping yourself abreast about the latest design codes and standards? Think about it!