Process Safety Management

Asking the Right Questions?

James Brown
Det Norske Veritas
 ?
"You can tell whether a person is clever by their answers.
You can tell whether a person is wise by their questions."

Naguib Mahfouz– 1988 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature

PSM – Asking the Right Questions?

April 2012
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 What is Chronic Unease?

PSM – Asking the Right Questions?

April 2012
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 Maturity of Process Safety Culture – Where are you?

World Class / Generative

Managing process safety is an integral part
of everything we do
(Continual improvement)

Increasing Maturity Leading Edge / Proactive

We are always on the alert / thinking
about process safety issues that might emerge
(Mature management system in place)

Extended / Bureaucratic
We have systems in place to
manage process safety
(Programme development)

Core / Reactive
We take process safety seriously and do something
when we have an incident
(Awareness building)

Progress is step by step

Uncertainty / Pathological
Why do we need to waste our time
on process safety issues?
PSM – Asking the Right Questions?
(Potential lack of control)
April 2012
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 Experience from Energy Industry

• Major Accident Hazards (MAH) should be formally identified.

• The Major Hazards are known but are not fully defined and embedded.
• Safety relevant people, processes and plant (barriers) should be identified.
• Clearer links are needed between barriers and Major Hazards.
• Performance standards are how you expect your barriers to perform when needed.
• Level of performance required of each barrier is not defined
• Need to check that barriers are working the way you expect them to
•• Verification of barriers is not linked to Major Hazards.
Maintenance, inspection, testing, competence assurance, etc

MAH
MAH

Barriers Barriers

Performance Performance
Standards Standards
Maintenance, Inspection,
Maintenance, Inspection,
Training, Testing, etc
Training, Testing, etc

Ideal Barrier Management Model Actual Barrier Management

PSM – Asking the Right Questions?

April 2012
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 Deepwater Horizon VIP Visit

Effective Site Visits and Safety Auditing

1. Remind yourself of the hazards and likely critical barriers for the rig.
2. Brief yourselves on lessons that should have been learned from previous PS incidents.
3. Find out what is happening on the rig before arrival.
4. If you have no experience of the activities, take someone who does.
5. Ask the following questions
PSM – Asking the Right Questions?
April 2012
© Det Norske Veritas Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Important Questions
1. Major Accident Hazards
• What are the worst accidents that could happen if a number of safety systems failed?
• How could such an accident happen?
2. Prevent and Detect (Barriers)
• What is in place to prevent this from happening?
• How would people know that such an incident is happening?
3. Control, Mitigate and Respond (Barriers)
• What is in place to prevent escalation?
• What is in place to minimise harm to people?
• How would you respond?
4. General
• How do you know your safety critical systems will work as they should?
• When you test or inspect, how do you know the results are OK?
• What is the most important thing we do to mitigate/control the risks to our business?
• If you could do anything to reduce risks to our business what would you do?
• What was the most recent Process Safety incident or near miss in your area?

PSM – Asking the Right Questions?

April 2012
© Det Norske Veritas Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Thank you - Questions?
"Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers."
Voltaire

“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
Confucius

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

The important thing is not to stop questioning”
Albert Einstein

PSM – Asking the Right Questions?

November2011
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