Process Safety Management
Recent incident investigations have called for a much greater emphasis on process safety management when managing risks at hazardous installations. At the detailed level, there are multiple reasons why major accidents occur. Whilst the immediate causes might lie in equipment malfunctions or errors made by frontline staff, the underlying causes are usually rooted in poor policy, lack of direction and gaps in essential safety procedures.
An effective process safety management programme should ensure, as a minimum, that robust systems are in place for:
- Hazard identification and risk assessment
- Compliance with applicable legislation, codes, standards and good practice
- Management of process safety knowledge
- Safe design, operation and maintenance of process plant and equipment
- Management of change, including processes, plant, people and procedures
- Emergency management
- Competency management and training
Our consultants, with the support of the Chemical Industries Association (CIA) and the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), embarked on the first ever process safety management benchmarking programme for UK sites regulated under the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations.
The benchmarking study compared approaches to asset integrity management at a number of upper tier COMAH sites against internationally recognised good practice guidance (CCPS Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety and the requirements of COMAH). Informed by this and similar work, our consultants and engineers can help you to develop world class process safety management systems.
PSM Frameworks, Control Systems & Benchmarking
Our team of consultants and engineers can help develop or assess existing key risk control systems that are essential for continued safe operation, maintenance and modification of processes and plant, including those necessary for:
- Competence Management
- Knowledge Management
- Risk Assessment
- Design of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
- Asset Integrity Management
- Contractor Management
- Management of Change
- Emergency Management
- Accident/Incident Reporting & Investigation
- Process Safety Performance Indicators (PSPIs)
- Audit & Review