Process Safety Education: A Comparitive Study

This study highlights the significance of integrating process safety education into the Chemical Engineering curriculum. Chemical engineers handle hazardous materials and design intricate processes, relying heavily on equipment integrity. Therefore, providing chemical engineering students with knowledge and experience in risk assessment, hazard identification, and mitigation strategies is essential. Incorporating these process safety topics enables proactive accident prevention, safeguarding engineers, colleagues, the environment, and the public, while ensuring corporate economic security. Introducing these concepts early in their academic journey reinforces students' ethical obligation to prioritize safety throughout their careers. This work describes implementing process safety education into the Chemical Engineering curriculum at a private university in southern Brazil. The initiative was facilitated by establishing an American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student chapter, providing access to professional resources. The challenges and successes encountered during integration are detailed, outlining curricular modifications, faculty development strategies, and student engagement methods. By disseminating this experience, we aim to foster the integration of process safety into the Chemical Engineering curriculum at other higher education institutions, boosting the next generation of professionals' knowledge and contributing to the consolidation of safety culture in Brazilian industry.

Incorporating process safety into a Colombian chemical engineering curriculum: A perception study

While no industrial chemical incident has had the magnitude for loss of life that occurred in 1984 at Bhopal, process safety incidents continue to occur today often resulting in serious injuries, fatalities, environmental harm, property damage, and business interruption. Over the last three decades, we have learned that these three interrelated foundations are essential for effective process safety programs: (1) process safety culture and leadership, (2) operational discipline, and (3) process safety systems. If any one of these foundations is weak, process safety incidents will occur and the organization's process safety performance will be poor. This article explores how the process safety systems are essential barriers when reducing risks, applying the layer of protection model and the bow tie barrier analysis model into a novel visual tool that can be used to identify both the foundational gaps and the process safety systems which failed. Although the Bhopal incident is used as the case study, the objective of this article is to provide a tool for others to use when summarizing their investigations in a way that helps them visually depict the investigation's findings and helps them prioritize and address weaknesses in one or more of their process safety program foundations. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 34: 345–354, 2015

The Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers has developed a twelve-element model management system for process safety. Concord has worked with CCPS to develop performance measures for two of the elements, namely “Management of Change” and “Training”. A unique feature of the measures is that they continuously assess the performance of the elements, a feature somewhat analogous to the control of a plant. This contrasts with an audit evaluation which captures a snapshot of the management system performance at a particular instant of time. Of special interest here is the method used to build the measures which employed chemical plant process safety experts performing the functions for which they are accepted as experts. For instance, analysis of the management systems used a method well known to chemical engineers for assessing chemical process safety, the Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP) (AIChE/CCPS 1985) process. Further, synthesis of the performance measures employed process safety experts in a role they perform in their professions - assessment of the level of performance of various demonstrations of process safety management systems. This methodology is believed to be a reliable way of obtaining information from experts. That method is described in this paper.

While modern process safety can be dated back to E.I. duPont in the early 1800s with the building of black powder plants including separation distances, and blast zones, the management of process safety has come a long way. Despite this, however, we have continued to see many catastrophic incidents occur, across a range of industries. There have been significant learning opportunities from the catastrophes, but are we actually applying the learnings? Exploring the past 40 years history shows a number of landmark process safety events. These events have not only changed our state of knowledge for managing process safety but have also resulted in standards and legislative change in multiple jurisdictions. This article explores the significant learnings that came out of the various landmark process safety events and the impact these changes have had on how process safety is managed today. Incidents considered as case studies in this article include the following:Flixborough UK (1974), Seveso Italy (1976), Bhopal India (1984), Piper Alpha UK (1988), Longford Australia (1998), Texas City Refinery USA (2005), Montara Australia (2009), Macondo USA (2010), and Pike River New Zealand (2010). © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 35: 165–170, 2016

This article covers the incompatible properties of nitric acid (HNO3) with formic acid (CH2O2), and more generally with various acids such as sulfuric acid (H2SO4), hydrochloric acid (HCl), and acetic acid (C2H4O2). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed to determine the thermal hazard such as heat of decomposition (ΔHd), exothermic onset temperature (T0), etc., in various acids. T0 of HNO3 and CH2O2 were determined as 50 °C using DSC. Thus it has been observed that HNO3 mixed with CH2O2 should be prohibited during transportation, storage, and use. And more generally, process safety engineers and operator must take care to handle tanker and storage tank of typical acids in the transportation, storage, and manufacturing process. It is clear that there exists a need to follow and enforce in the chemical industries safety data sheets, globally harmonized system of classification and labeling of chemicals of United Nations (UN), education of safety and health, emergency response system, and process safety management. It is the aim of the present study concerning HNO3 with various acids.

Midstream oil and gas companies are coming into their own. For example, according to Deloitte (2014), “Midstream energy companies’ share of overall market value in the oil and gas industry has already risen, nearly tripling over the last six years.” Midstream operators are becoming the stars of the energy industry, investing $26 billion on new pipelines and facilities in 2012—a drastic increase from the seven billion spent just 6 years earlier [Larsson, Midstream investment in pipeline management solutions, Oil and Gas Monitor, Schneider Electric, 2014].Particularly in the United States due to the success of shale and the increasing possibilities for exportation along with recent accidents and fatalities, more scrutiny is being given to both process safety and the humans in the myriad of midstream systems. In the petroleum industry, midstream activities are often taken for granted. Midstream, the conduit between upstream (retrieval of crude oil) and downstream (the processing of petroleum products), is deceivingly complex and risk‐laden. The process safety issues are many and often the integration of those issues with the elements of crude oil storage and transportation is elusive.“Even the best designed, engineered, maintained, and operated pipelines and modes of transportation can be vulnerable to human failures and organizational complexity” [Smith and Volf, Oil Gas Financ J (2013)]. Human Factors (HFs) is a scientific tool that integrates humans (and their capabilities and limitations) into highly complex processes and systems. This discussion describes how the integration of HFs with process safety in crude oil storage, pipeline management, and transportation preserves human safety, organizational credibility, public goodwill, and infrastructure confidence along with investment maximization and preservation.Each aspect and phase of midstream activities share commonalities with the others and yet each has its own unique aspects and challenges. This article describes HFs integration with process safety in the midstream environment. Issues and considerations common to most facets of midstream enterprises are addressed. In addition, unique components of each of the midstream factors such as pipelines, transportation—rail, ship, and truck—and logistics and technology are discussed from a HFs perspective. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 34: 320–327, 2015

Industry over the last two to three years has put a lot of effort into implementing Process Safety Metrics. This is a good practice but, now that we have metrics data, how are we utilizing them to improve process safety performance? Air Products has been monitoring process safety performance for the last five years using combined Center for Chemical Process Safety and American Petroleum Institute RP 754 metrics. This article will highlight the approach we have applied, both through our lagging and leading indicators, to drive our process safety performance improvement programs. It will review the programs we initiated, leading indicators we identified, and how it also helped to improve our process safety culture. This article will also look at the importance of measuring severity and its impact in driving leadership behaviors. We will also discuss future opportunities to improve process safety performance via metrics analysis and follow‐up initiatives. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 172–178, 2014

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has developed a guideline describing a new risk‐based approach that an organization can use in defining and implementing a process safety management system specific to its unique needs. Recognizing the importance of safety culture as a determinant of safety performance, CCPS has included process safety culture as one element in the new risk‐based process safety (RBPS) model. This paper will describe both the new process safety culture element and its integration in the overall RBPS model. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 26:203–208, 2007

Process safety part of the engineering education DNA

Applied Safety Science and Engineering Techniques (ASSET™) merge safety science and hazard based safety engineering principles within the overall framework of a safety management process to achieve, maintain and continuously improve the safety of products, processes and services for safer living and working environments. This paper covers the ASSET Safety Management Process and its guiding principles. This process has been synthesized from other current, mainstream principles of risk assessment and risk management, including recent International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) publications. Basic relationships are explored among hazards, exposure and harm to persons, property and the environment. Various potential approaches to safeguard against harm are then explored in the framework of safety management, systems engineering, human factors and other relevant principles. The ASSET Safety Management Process involves stages to (a) formulate the right types of questions to identify the scope of the product, system or service to be evaluated for potential harm, (b) identify and analyze hazards (potential sources of harm), (c) identify, analyze and evaluate protective measures to reduce the risk of harm (e.g., risk of injury from products), (d) assist in the determination of whether or not an acceptable level of safety is achieved, (e) understand and apply methods to maintain and continuously improve safety. This can help explain, apply and enhance existing requirements, and help address emerging technologies, products and applications. ASSET can be applied to virtually any industry and product segment to support informed decisions on solutions to difficult safety issues, using sound safety science and engineering experience and judgment. The ASSET process supports development of safety standards, codes, and regulations, and design, evaluation, compliance, certification and safety management of products, processes and services. This applies to responsibilities of safety designers, regulatory compliance, product safety certifiers, standards/codes developers and product and program safety managers. ASSET can also help to integrate and address the needs of various stakeholders including regulators, AHJs, standards developers, trade and professional organizations, consumer groups, government agencies and the public. The ASSET Safety Management Process can be used as a prospective, proactive tool to anticipate, assess and adequately protect against potential harm, and to support solutions in the immediate term for emerging technologies, products and applications, and in the longer term as new hazard-based or risk-based requirements are developed in standards, codes and regulations. ASSET is a trademark of UL LLC.

Metrics addressing process safety incident performance typically focus on frequency and severity statistics. Often, these lagging metrics are not overly sensitive to actual performance, making trending and forecasting difficult. This article presents the results from a statistical study of a large incident dataset where changes in the Pareto shape parameter were observed as a function of time. This approach has been found to give far better insight into process safety performance than traditional incident metrics and readily relates back to concepts such as the “incident triangle” and “layers of protection.” Through the application of this approach, trends within process safety incident performance have been observed earlier, and more accurate forecasting has allowed for the identification of anomalies. In turn, these critical observations have allowed for the better structuring and targeting of process safety programs. Although incident data are generally considered as a lagging indicator, this approach has clearly reduced the lag time associated with this type of data and has given valuable insight into the current status of process safety performance. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009

Software and automation can play a significant role with respect to safety in the chemical process and energy production industries. Because computing systems are increasingly used to control critical functions, software may directly contribute to an accident. On the other hand, software can also be used as part of the hazard control strategy to reduce risks, and computing systems can provide valuable information to help make safety decisions. The importance of including software as part of an organization's efforts to analyze and manage hazards and risks seems clear, but for many organizations software is not effectively incorporated into process safety efforts. This article reviews lessons learned from accidents and incidents to illustrate the potential for a software‐related accident even when process safety management tools and techniques are used. This discussion is intended to provide insights to help improve process safety and software safety efforts. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 124–130, 2014

In 2012, the European Process Safety Centre (EPSC) published Making the case for leading indicators in process safety which is a pamphlet on the selection, development, and implementation of leading indicators for process safety. The document contains details on the type and spread of indicators which EPSC members have established within their own companies. In addition, EPSC provided several practical tips for the do's and don'ts of successful implementation including presentation of data and engagement of staff. This article is to develop these aspects further while exploring the relationship between leading indicators on a plant, business unit, and corporate level. Additionally, the interaction between leading and lagging indicators is to be highlighted alongside the management space which process safety indicators now inhabit with respect to monitoring and audit/review activities. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 32: 332–336, 2013

The European Position Paper on Rhinosinusitis and Nasal Polyps 2012 is the update of similar evidence based position papers published in 2005 and 2007. The document contains chapters on definitions and classification, we now also proposed definitions for difficult to treat rhinosinusitis, control of disease and better definitions for rhinosinusitis in children. More emphasis is placed on the diagnosis and treatment of acute rhinosinusitis. Throughout the document the terms chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps (CRSsNP) and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) are used to further point out differences in pathophysiology and treatment of these two entities. There are extensive chapters on epidemiology and predisposing factors, inflammatory mechanisms, (differential) diagnosis of facial pain, genetics, cystic fibrosis, aspirin exacerbated respiratory disease, immunodeficiencies, allergic fungal rhinosinusitis and the relationship between upper and lower airways. The chapters on paediatric acute and chronic rhinosinusitis are totally rewritten. Last but not least all available evidence for management of acute rhinosinusitis and chronic rhinosinusitis with or without nasal polyps in adults and children is analyzed and presented and management schemes based on the evidence are proposed. This executive summary for otorhinolaryngologists focuses on the most important changes and issues for otorhinolaryngologists. The full document can be downloaded for free on the website of this journal: http://www.rhinologyjournal.com.