What is process safety management?

Process safety management is a tool for preventing any disaster stemming from any highly hazardous chemical defined by EPA or OSHA. Process safety management is a set of 14 tools or methods designed to contain and deal with or prevent hazards related to the release of harmful chemicals from process factories and other sources. Its aim is to decrease the severity and frequency of such hazards. It is advised to take the aid of a process safety management consultant to follow and implement all these techniques to prevent any hazard from occurring in your plant.

Here are the 14 elements that you should know about:

1. Process safety information

Employers must provide a complete list of process safety information. The list must have information regarding the possible hazard, information regarding the technology being used in the process, materials and equipment being used in the process and that such equipment is on par with the industry standards and good engineering practices.

2. Process hazard analysis

A process hazard analysis is the thorough analysis of a potential hazard. The analysis must have a check-list to determine the severity and character of the hazard and must provide a detailed analysis of what could lead to the potential hazard and how to identify the hazard. They must also provide what all techniques were placed to contain or manage the hazard.

3. Operating procedures

Employers must provide safety procedures of the process that must clearly indicate how to operate the equipment and must list and explain all operating phases. It must mention operating limits and the consequences of going beyond it along with any and all safety and health precautions that the workers must take.

4. Employee participation

Employers must interact and consult with their employees and employee representatives to discuss and create process hazard analyses and development of all other elements of process hazard management. Employees must be given to all process hazard analyses and all information related process hazard management.

5. Training

Each employee who is employed in a process must be thoroughly trained in the operating procedures, and there must be a refresher training period, and all such training must be documented.

6. Contractors

Employers must ensure that labor employed through contractors also follows the process safety management and that contract employees are informed and well trained regarding the process operation.

7. Pre Start-up review

The employer must ensure that before the process is started or introduced a pre-start-up check-up is done of the equipment and the facilities and that they match the set standards and design specifications and all employees participating have completed their process training.

8. Mechanical Integrity.

The employer must ensure and maintain the integrity of all process equipment, and regular maintenance must be done, and record of such maintenance must be kept.

9. Hot Work

A permit has to be issued for hot work operations and must include fire prevention requirements and whether they have been matched and the object that will be subject to hot work.

10. Management of change

Any proposed changes in the process must be thoroughly evaluated for its effect on the process and employee safety and health. Any possible change must be covered, and the way to manage such change has to be provided.

11. Incident Investigation

Any incident must be thoroughly analyzed to find the cause and chain of events and steps must be taken to prevent such events from happening in the future or to ensure that such incidents can be contained and there is a management procedure for such incidents.

12. Emergency Planning and response

Employees must be trained to respond to all possible emergency situations, and all such situations must be pre-planned into an Emergency action plan.

13. Compliance Audits

Employers must ensure that there is an audit of all procedures and practices developed under Process safety management every three years on whether set industrial standards are being followed or not.

14. Trade Secrets

Employers must make all information related to processing safety management accessible to people responsible for ensuring the smooth functioning of all elements of safety management regardless of such information is a trade secret. An Employer can require such people to enter into confidentiality agreements to not disclose the information.