One Company’s Journey To Process Safety Excellence

Major accidents in the chemical and petrochemical industries have been key driving forces for issuing new regulations. Some incidents have even led to thousands of residents sheltering in place or evacuating and resulted in many millions of dollars in property damage. In 2022 alone, OSHA issued 430 citations to oil refineries, chemical plants, water and sewage treatment operations, and other facilities that use hazardous chemicals.

Recent investigations of major accidents in the chemical and petrochemical industry:

Source: csb.gov

Recognize the Need for Improvement

Despite best efforts, almost all safety management systems have gaps in practicality and effectiveness. It requires considerable effort to stay in compliance with EPA and OSHA standards. Having a thorough grasp of the RAGAGEPs that apply to your facility, as well as verifying that your PSM program procedures meet these standards, is a vital part of compliance. An effective compliance audit program is another part of an effective safety program to ensure that procedures incorporate all applicable RAGAGEPs and also that they are implemented as written.

The effectiveness of a Process Safety Management System is based on the daily ability of an organization to continuously and thoroughly implement all the system requirements (CCPS, 2011). Just one person, one time, not executing his/her task appropriately, can threaten an operation's smooth operation, which in turn can lead to a serious incident. Your facility is at a greater chance of risk without employee participation, safety dialogue, and access to information.

Many organizations are interested in enhancing their process safety culture. Often this includes upgrading existing information management systems to utilize current-day technology, migrating from hard copy files, and the manual dissemination of information. Another upgrade interest may include identifying tools to streamline compliance. All organizations want to ensure resources are being utilized in an effective, yet efficient manner.

Case Study for Process Safety Excellence

Learn how ioMosaic reduced process safety risk, maintained compliance and substantially increased peace of mind for our client. Their annual demand had increased from 1.5 million parts to 60 million in a 4-year timeframe. Their production schedule expanded from a 5-day, 8-hour shift to a 24/7 operation. As production demands grew, it became increasingly critical to implement a more effective, long-term process safety system. Watch this video for a look at their journey to a fully automated process safety workflow. The result was a process safety culture shift. Our client improved their overall performance, communication, and employee empowerment; they reduced incident rates and decreased costs.

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With our Process Safety Enterprise^® platform, multiple system enhancements were achieved:

• Their Process Safety Information (PSI) was converted from fragmented, hard copy files to a readily assessable and accessible central repository, providing easy access to their PSI.
• Their Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) were now readily retrievable and organized for audits.
• Any action items resulting from prestart-up safety reviews, management of change (MOCs), incident investigations, PHAs, and audits, were now centralized and tracked to ensure efficient closure.
• All company operating standards and other documents were now readily available, ensuring all process safety management documentation was included as required by EPA and OSHA regulations.
• Other important systems such as job safety analysis and safety walkthroughs were also incorporated.
• Users could now manage and communicate action items, identify deficiencies, assign and schedule tasks, and share recommendations with team members, whether they were users or non-users.

We Can Help

Process Safety Enterprise^® achieves the task of helping people to ‘not forget’ to do the things they are supposed to do. As many of us have learned from incident investigations, the devil is in the details when it comes to a highly hazardous process. Information technology solutions help young and unknowledgeable people do the right things, at the right time, to prevent that catastrophe we all fear.

For more information on optimizing process safety, please contact us at 1.844.ioMosaic or send us a note via our online form. We would love to hear from you.