LS : How to Transform a Process Safety System ?

www.safetygoodwe.com

Topic : Safety Management 

How to Transform a Process Safety System

Sometimes it takes a major accident to realize that organization safety system doesn't met required  standards. 

“In general organization think they have implemeted safety correctly, but reframing of safety process on timely basis get overlooped. Organization need to be rethink “To build process safety as core safety program.”

The organization must plan to set measurable disciplines, which address the historically ambiguous approach to evaluating high-reliability organization performance. The scales measure cultural and leadership characteristics linked to consistently safe and reliable performance; the absence of which has been complicit in historical catastrophic events.

The measures shoud consist of four operational disciplines that define a continuous system of behaviors focused on rigorous identification of deviations from normal operation, rapid resolution of these deviations at an early stage while ensuring that organizational learning occurs.

The safety scale model focuses on:

• Anticipation: Fostering systems and behaviors sensitive to "weak signals" indicating increased risk.
• Inquiry: Effective use of information to analyze and plan mitigation of risks.
• Execution: Monitoring, reinforcing and verifying program execution.
• Resilience: Developing and exercising the ability to react in ways that prevent upset conditions from becoming catastrophic events.

Organization need to realized that safety had to start including the shop floor / field and not just be a corporate program. So it need to prepare a team, covering each of their key regions, and set them to training session for team. The group included employees from Engineering, Operations, Maintenance and Safety professions. They became safety ambassadors that spread the knowledge across the organization.

Summarized the lesson learned during the Organization transformation of its safety system and offered these best practices:

• Develop a risk-aware management commitment
• Create standardized global hazard control
• Develop comprehensive hazard awareness and competency related to “Target Hazards”
• Conduct self-assessment and rigorous verification
• Track progress with “in process” metrics

The safety transformation was based on a different circumstance. “We took a look at our results and wanted to get better,”
“The growth of business volume, service offering, reach and resources required a higher HSE performance,”.  

The organization created a “Safe by Choice" HSE pprogram which trains staff to embrace positive environmental health and safety on all levels. 

The new culture centers around providing employees with ownership of the HSE programs as safety is not only a work-time requirement but in fact a way of life.

The company has defined its HSE program as follows:

H – Health of our employees and ultimately the health of our business.
S – Safety -- we plan, design, engineer, procure and manage our projects with safety in mind.

E – Environmental awareness and responsibilities in design and practice.Zero Injuries at workplace

The program has proven successful and has resulted in:

• Observations/Leading Indicators
• Zero Total Recordable Incident Rate 

While organization very different reasons for overhauling their safety programs, creating a new process, and most importantly creating a safety culture which enables all employees to take responsibility for safety, has proven successful.