Process Safety Management

Developing optimum safety and risk management systems, guidelines and standards, and audit protocols worldwide.

A proactive approach, coupled with properly planned and implemented safety and risk management systems can help you comply with local, state and federal PSM regulations, as well as minimize loss of life, environmental impact, equipment damage, citations and litigation.

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How We Can Help You

ioMosaic pioneered many of the current risk assessment techniques for processes that handle hazardous chemicals.

Our experts support every aspect to ensure that your facility runs safely and efficiently.

Expertise to help you minimize your exposure to fire, injury, property damage, and litigation.

Integrating best practices with cost-effective solutions to address program deficiencies.

Helping manage risk with facility siting studies, assessments and recommendations.

Senior knowledgeable engineers facilitate PHAs or DHAs in nearly all sectors of the process and processing industries.

Decades of experience leading incident investigations for process industry companies.

We prepare expert opinion reports and provide expert testimony for process incident cases.

Experienced engineers who have performed LOPAs on a wide range of facilities and terminals.

Our experts are at the forefront of pipeline Process Safety Management proficiency.

Proven track record of performing QRAs for facilities, pipelines and transportation routes.

Well versed in assisting global companies with their sustainability reporting communications.

Decades of experience mitigating hazards for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

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Featured Case Studies

 

Corporate Guidance On Risk Management

The chemical company of a large integrated energy company was developing a corporate standard for LOPA, which incorporated a risk ranking matrix. The company was interested in obtaining an independent review of the design of the risk matrix, and in benchmarking the underlying risk tolerability criteria with generally accepted industry norms.

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A large Canadian refinery was performing risk assessments to identify personnel, environmental, and operational hazards in order to satisfy legal and business requirements. This work was being done on a planned schedule, with each unit being reviewed annually. The challenge was to use Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) methodologies that provided an effective analysis appropriate to the particular unit to be studied and the potential hazards.
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When a tank car failed at a facility, a release of toxic gas occurred. Our client, the supplier of the chemical, was the subject of a class action lawsuit.
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A major pulp and paper manufacturing company in Mississippi determined that its process safety management (PSM) program had to do more than merely follow OSHA regulations; they wanted it to also be effective in preventing accidents.

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Featured Video

PSM Frequently Asked Questions

Does your facility need a PSM program? Is your PSM program effectively implemented?

If your facility uses, stores, manufactures, handles, or moves flammable or highly hazardous chemicals on site above the threshold quantity (TQ), OSHA does require PSM implementation. Learn the facts about process safety management.

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Our Team

Georges A. Melhem, Ph.D., FAIChE

President & CEO The founder of ioMosaic and internationally renowned expert in the areas of pressure relief and flare systems design, chemical reaction systems, process safety and risk analysis. Read more...

Neil Prophet

Senior Vice President and Partner He brings over 20 years of experience in pressure relief and flare systems design project management and engineering expertise for chemical, pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies. Read more...

Katherine Anderson, CCPSC

Senior Principal Consultant Experienced project leader in hazard identification, evaluation, functional safety, process safety and risk management. Read more...

John Barker, Ph.D.

Director The head of our international offices in the U.K. and the Kingdom of Bahrain and an expert in risk management for oil, gas and transportation. Read more...

Pamela M. Nelson, CCPSC

Principal Consultant She leads process safety projects for business units across the U.S., Canada, Thailand, China, and the U.K. Read more...

Marcel Amorós Martí

Director and Partner His expertise consists of a diverse range of industries from chemical and petrochemical to oil and gas and utilities. Read more...

Dianne Coon, CSP

Principal Consultant A CSP Certified Safety Professional with 32 years of experience in process safety and health, and safety and environment (HSE) management. Read more...

David Blake

Senior Safety and Risk Management Consultant Over 30 years of experience in process safety and risk management for the chemical processing and government industries. Read more...

Peter Stickles, P.E.

Principal Consultant Senior authority with over 50 years of experience in chemical process safety, petroleum refining and petrochemical technology, and process design. Read more...

Enio Kumpinsky, Ph.D.

Principal Consultant Senior authority with over 35 years of diversified experience in process safety in the chemical manufacturing industry. Read more...

Hamed M.H. Al Nahawi

Senior Consultant Chemical engineer focused on pressure relief and flare system design and analysis for large chemical and petrochemical companies. Read more...

Anna Shinkawa

Senior Safety and Risk Management Consultant Over 12 years of experience managing and executing PRFS design, risk analysis, and PSM audits for chemical and petrochemical companies in the U.S. Read more...

Christian Sarno

Senior Safety and Risk Management Consultant Focuses on quantitative risk assessment (QRA), facility siting, pressure relief and flare system (PRFS) design and analysis for chemical and utility companies. Read more...

James Close, CEng, MIChemE

Senior Consultant Focused on pressure relief and flare system design and analysis for large chemical and petrochemical companies in Europe and the U.S. Read more...

Ram Goyal

Consultant A seasoned leader in engineering project management and safety standards, specializing in Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA). Read more...

Judy A. Perry, CCPSC

Principal Consultant A Certified Process Safety Professional with over 35 years of diverse expertise in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as over 30 years in process safety and operations management. Read more...

Adam Baker, P.E.

Senior Consultant He has over 10 years of experience performing quantitative risk assessments, facility siting studies, and providing process safety and relief system design support for clients across the globe. Read more...

Featured Resources

Risk Considerations for Safe Process Design

Safe Design has Long Been a Priority in the Process Industries

Today, the process industries need to be certain that their stakeholders have confidence in how they manage the environmental, health, security, and safety implications of industrial activities. Read this white paper for a systematic, risk-based approach to safe design that can help to eliminate hazards that pose high risks from the process and help mitigate.

Read the White Paper

Analyze Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) Using Fault Trees

Even before the adoption of ISA-S84.013 as a national standard, safety instrumented systems (SIS) were used to mitigate the risks of process hazards. With the establishment of the standard, there is now a framework for defining Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) for such systems and the associated reliability requirements. However, the standard does not address the topic of how to determine what SIL category is needed to fill the independent layers of protection (IPL) gap. It assumes (section 4.2.2) that this analysis is performed prior to applying the principles of the standard.

The IPL gap is usually addressed during a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) or in a separate exercise such as Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) or Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). All of these involve some type of risk assessment (typically risk ranking) against established tolerability criteria. Needless to say, the quality of the IPL gap analysis is very critical to the overall risk mitigation benefit and implementation cost.

As part of the IPL gap analysis for existing plants, it is necessary to determine the SIL credit afforded by the current SIS IPLs. During the PHA, the tendency is to err on the conservative side to avoid overstating the credit. By using FTA, it may be possible to incorporate factors such as functional testing, and to allow the proper credit for existing IPLs.

FTA also has application in establishing the SIL credit for the design of new SISs that are required to address recommendations from PHAs or that are associated with new or modified plant projects. FTA is one of the evaluation techniques for which ISA has developed guidelines4 to be used for determining the SIL for Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF).

Because ANSI/ISA-S84.01 is a performance based standard, it provides the designer some flexibility as to how the required reliability is achieved. Section 6.2.3 of the standard states that the desired SIL shall be met through a combination of fifteen design considerations that include: separation, redundancy, failure rates and failure modes, and functional testing interval to mention a few. Furthermore, Appendix B.15.2 states, “The functional test interval should be selected to achieve the Safety Integrity Level (SIL).”

The use of functional testing to improve the reliability of interlocks and SISs is a well-established concept. Some examples of how functional test intervals can be adjusted to obtain equivalent SIL reliability are presented below. Fault tree analysis can be used to quantify the effect of adopting a certain functional testing interval on system reliability. Coupling this with cost-benefit analysis allows the designer to compare initial hardware cost against the ongoing maintenance expense of the additional functional testing. Furthermore, with voting SISs, FTA can provide insight on how to set the functional testing interval to obtain the required SIL reliability.


Featured Services

Quantitative Risk Assessment

Proven track record of performing QRAs for refineries, chemical plants, LNG facilities, pipelines and transportation routes. Read more...

Hazard Analysis (PHA/DHA)

Senior knowledgeable engineers facilitate PHAs or DHAs in nearly all sectors of the process and processing industries, either hands-on or remotely. Read more...

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