CAREERS SAFETY tce

How safe do you feel?

Jo Sharp takes a look at IChemE's recent survey on process safety and offers the views of four leading experts in the sector
HE chemical and process industries are getting safer, and senior management is key to further improving safety standards. These are the headline results of a recent process safety survey of IChemE members in the Asia Pacific region. More than 100 participants completed the survey and we shared the results with four industry experts: John Bresland, former chair of the Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board, US and current president of Process Safety Risk Assessment LLC, a consulting company focusing on the chemical and energy sectors; Hans Volkmar Schwarz, vice president of process safety at BASF; Ian Hamilton, global head of human factors at Environmental Resources Management; and Yang Soo Lee, senior vice president and head of safety health & environment division at SK Innovation in Korea. We asked all four whether senior management really holds the key to process safety or whether this was an exercise in passing the buck amongst less senior chemical engineers. Schwarz thinks responsibility must be shared among all employees and viewed as an investment: It is everyones responsibility...the key is an open climate in the company where discussion has its place. Managers with insight push for high process safety because they understand the advantages it brings. It is a shared responsibility on all ranks of the company. We all want to work in a safe environment and dont want to harm our colleagues and neighbours, and we want our plants to be profitable, adds Schwarz. But Bresland says the role of the CEO is crucial and that one of their responsibilities is to ensure that the organisations process safety experts have a leadership role in the day-to-day operation of the company: If a company is to have a successful process safety record, it is the responsibility of the CEO to be a role model for clear and positive process safety leadership. The CEO has to show leadership and enthusiasm for process safety in all of their interactions with the manufacturing organisation. It is essential that the company has a highly competent process safety technical organisation at the staff level as well as in the operating units. In a situation where a CEO does not himself have an operational or technical background, it is especially important to have a competent process safety management organisation, adds Bresland. Lee believes that strong safety leadership can be implemented via a range of methods: Management must declare its HSE policy and communicate it throughout the organisation. It must treat process safety as a core value to the

Process safety survey key findings

Q: How do you prefer to learn about safety (up to three choices)?

Books, journals and magazines are

the preferred way to learn about safety

of respondents believe that their organisation's

for dealing with safety issues

83%
of respondents reported that their organisations do not use a safety observation programme (eg STOP or PACE)

n Books, journals and magazines 59.5% n In-house events and training 47.7% n Safety conferences 40.5% n IChemE events and training 38.7% n Online training 36.9% n Other external events and training 26.1% n Other (please specify) 4.5% n None 0.9%

primary focus
is preventing incidents

Q: Are chemical and process industries getting safer in your country?

One third

believe that process industries in their country are getting safer

72%

n n n n

Yes, moderately safer 52.3% No, the same 22.5% Yes, a lot safer 19.8% No, less safe 5.4%

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SAFETY
company and integrate safety performance to the evaluation of both individuals and the wider organisation. But how confident are the experts that industry doesnt cut corners on safety? We all know that the financial and reputational risks associated with process safety incidents are high, not to mention the dangers to employees and those in surrounding areas. But, particularly in tough economic times, is it idealistic to assume that organisations will always do the right thing? Some organisations believe that safety management can be an overhead, and that major programmes aimed at reducing occupational accidents should be sufficient, that more investment cannot be justified, says Hamilton. But process safety is not simply an added cost he adds. In complex enterprises, such as those operated in the oil, gas and chemical industries, there is a high reliance on the successful interaction between people, processes and technologies. Lee reveals that investment in safety should be considered as a strategic investment as part of helping an organisation to grow, not simply treated as doing whats necessary to comply with local legal requirements: Its necessary for a company to make sustained investment for not only business profit but also process safety. A company must have a process that ensures senior management reviews and decides how much to invest in process safety. Schwarz feels that senior management has to understand that high performance in process safety does require an input of resources up-front and that this sometimes needs to be explained to those individuals who havent come from production ranks: It is like an investment: you put in the money and the competence first when the process is developed, or the plant is built and optimised, and you earn the interest from this investment during the whole lifetime of that plant in the form of a low incident rate, high on-stream time and yes, even a more loyal workforce. The belief that building the cheapest, lowest investment plant, where safety principles are ignored gets you the biggest profits may still be held by some executives, but it is at best very short-term orientated and simply wrong. I put my money successfully on the opposite end of the scale, he concludes. Bresland, Hamilton, Lee and Schwarz are all keynote speakers at IChemEs 'Hazards Asia Pacific' process safety conference taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April next year. tce Visit www.icheme.org/hazardsap2013 for more information.

Over half of those polled think strong leadership from the CEO is the key to improving process safety
Q: How can safety be improved in chemical and process industries? (upto three choices)
n Strong leadership from CEO 51.9% n Better management and supervision 50.0%

of respondents want more training for operators

40%

n Better enforcement of existing regulations 44.4% n Improved systems for challenging safety decisions 43.5% n More training for operators 40.7% n A formal process safety qualification 25.9% n Other 12.0% n More regulations 5.6%

Leadership was the number one factor which impacts on safety performance followed by plant design and then human factors Q: To what extent do you think these factors impact on safety performance (1 is least, 5 is most)
Safety management systems
25.0% 27.8% 34.3% 6.5% 6.6% 6.5% 12.3%

11.3%

30.2%

39.6%

Cultural factors

15.9%

3.7%

8.4%

29%

43%

Human factors

33.3%

49.5%

1.9%

7.6%

7.6%

Leadership

16.2%

30.5%

43.8%

5.7%

3.8%

Plant design

12

The majority of respondents believe that companies should have primary responsbility for process safety Q: Who should have primary responsibility for process safety (1 is least, 5 is most)
87.4% 5.4% 2.7% 4.5%

Companies

19.8%

50.5%

15.3%

7.2% 16.7%

7.2%

National government

17.6%

35.2%

20.4%

10.2%

Local government Professional associations

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13.6%

25.5%

30.0%

22.7%

8.2%