PREFACE

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) has been closely

involved with process safety and loss control issues in the chemical and allied
industries for more than four decades. Through its strong ties with process
designers, constructors, operators, safety professionals, and members of
academia, AIChE has enhanced communications and fostered continuous
improvement of the industry's high safety standards. AIChE publications and
symposia have become information resources for those devoted to process
safety and environmental protection.
AIChE created the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) in 1985
after the chemical disasters in Mexico City, Mexico, and Bhopal, India. The
CCPS is chartered to develop and disseminate technical information for use in
the prevention of major chemical accidents. The center is supported by more
than 80 chemical process industry sponsors who provide the necessary funding
and professional guidance to its technical committees. The major product of
CCPS activities has been a series of guidelines to assist those implementing
various elements of a process safety and risk management system. This book is
part of that series.
Process safety practices and formal safety management systems have been
in place in some companies for many years. Nevertheless, many organizations
continue to be challenged by inadequate management system performance,
resource pressures, and stagnant process safety results. To promote process
safety management excellence and continuous improvement throughout
industry, CCPS created risk-based process safety (RBPS) as the framework for
the next generation of process safety management.
This new framework builds upon ideas first published by the AIChE in
1989 in its book titled Guidelines for Technical Management of Chemical
Process Safety that were further refined in AIChE's 1992 book titled Plant
Guidelines for Technical Management of Chemical Process Safety. The RBPS
approach recognizes that all hazards and risks are not equal; consequently, it

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l GUIDELINES FOR RISK BASED PROCESS SAFETY

advocates that more resources should be focused on more significant hazards

and higher risks. The approach is built on four pillars:

• Commit to process safety

• Understand hazards and risk
• Manage risk
• Learn from experience

These pillars are further divided into 20 elements. The 20 RBPS elements
build and expand upon the original 12 elements proposed in the 1989 work,
reflecting 15 years of process safety management implementation experience
and well-established best practices from a variety of industries. The safety
record within the chemical and allied process industries is impressive. CCPS
member companies, as well as the industry in general, are committed to
continually improving on this impressive safety record. It is CCPS's hope that
adopting a risk-based approach to managing process safety will become an
integral part of this effort.