SAFE DESIGN AND OPERATION OF PLANTS

What is Safe Design and Why does it Matter?

Safe design is the process of integrating hazard identification and risk assessment right
from the design stage. This helps to minimize and eliminate the risks of injury throughout
the lifecycle of the plant. Safe design encompasses all design including layout,
configuration, energy controls, materials, tooling, hardware and software systems,
electrical lines, equipment, facilities and more.

Safe design starts from the conceptual and planning phases of the plant. It’s about
making conscious choices in design, material, and methods used to enhance the safety
of the plant right from day one of operation.

Why include Safety in the Early Stages of Plant Design?

When safety is incorporated into the design right from the early stages, it becomes easier
to avoid operational hazards and to integrate compatible risk control measures. This way,
safety becomes part-and-parcel of the design, instead of being added in as an
afterthought.

Importance of Integrating Risk Management into the Design Process

By integrating risk management in the design process, you systematically make the
workplace as safe as possible, right from the early stages. Various risk management
methodologies can be employed depending on the complexity and type of the industrial
plant or manufacturing facility being developed.

The Benefits of Safe Design

When you focus on creating safer workplaces right from the start, it’s highly cost effective.
Eliminating a hazard during the design stage is not only easier but also highly effective.
Rather than making changes later in the lifecycle, when it poses a major risk to
employees, clients, and the business, you get to avoid the hazard right from day one. By
including safety in the design stage, you can significantly reduce the operational costs of
the plant.
Step-by-Step: Overview of the risk management in the design process

1. Identifying hazards
2. Assess Risk
3. Controlling the Risk
4. Review

1. Identifying Hazards. Any item in the plant that may have the potential to cause harm
to employees, clients and other users of the manufacturing facility in any way is identified
as a hazard.

Identifying hazards categorized in three different ways:

• Hazards that arise from the facility itself
• Hazards that rise from work practices
• Hazards as a result of the environment

2. Assess Risks. What you are doing in this step, is to assess each risk hazard identified
in the previous step, so that you can control, minimize or eliminate it. To assess risks,
you need to consider the probability of it happening and if it occurs, the harm it would
cause (consequences).

3. Controlling the Risks. Once you have identified and assessed the hazards, the next
step is to control, minimize or eliminate it. There are several ways of doing this process.
Use the hierarchy listed here to help you out. The idea here is that you should start at
the highest level possible. For example, a designer may be able to eliminate a hazard by
modifying the design of the facility.

Hierarchy of Control to Eliminate the Hazard:

Elimination – Remove the hazard or the hazardous work practice from the
workplace. This is the most effective way to deal with the hazard.

Substitution – Substitute the hazard or the hazardous work practice with a less
hazardous one. For instance, you may replace a component that has poor heat tolerance
with another component that has higher heat tolerance.
 Isolation – Isolating the hazard away from the people involved in the work. For
example, you can include screens and other barriers to mark hazardous areas.

Engineering Control – If the hazard cannot be removed by any of the above

procedures, then this is the next best option. For example, you can modify machinery by
including guarding rails or retro-fitting cut-out switches and so on.

Administrative Control – This includes introducing rules to reduce the risk. For
example, you could limit the time each employee is exposed to a particular hazard and
so on.

Personal Protective Equipment – This is not an exclusive control measure, but

an added precaution.

Administrative and personal protective equipment are both back-up controls and should
not be the primary risk control measure. Also, remember that control measures are not
mutually exclusive, meaning you may need to use more than one measure to reduce
hazards.

4. Review. Risk management in safe design doesn’t end with implementing a control
measure. You have to assess further the control measured to find out. You have to repeat
this process until all high and medium risks have been eliminated. You have to repeat
this process if any circumstances change. Remember that hazard identification and risk
assessment is not a “one-time” process.

Design for Safe Use

Consider the following factors:
· The maximum number of tasks an operator can perform at a time and the complexity
of these tasks.

• The need to minimize long periods of repeated everyday activity.

• The layout of the plant, floors, workstations, etc.
• Instrumentation and layout.
• Consistency and “naturalness” of control.
• Emergency stop buttons for all operations.

Predict and Avoid Misuse

While designing a plant, you have to consider misuse (both intended and accidental).
Misuse is the use of equipment, tools or machinery for a task for which it was not originally
designed. For instance, a forklift intended to operate on slopes no steeper than 1:5, may
be used on steeper slopes. As a designer, you need to incorporate tilt alarms to control
such risks.
Reducing the need for maintenance – The lower the maintenance, the lower is the
exposure to risks.

Design for Safe Failure. In the unfortunate condition, the plant fails it should fail safely,
without creating any safety or health risks. For instance, if the moving parts of a system
break, the plant should be designed in such a way that fragments don’t get ejected.

AND PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

Personal protective equipment, commonly referred to as "PPE", is equipment worn to

minimize exposure to hazards that cause serious workplace injuries and illnesses. These
injuries and illnesses may result from contact with chemical, radiological, physical,
electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards. Personal protective equipment may
include items such as gloves, safety glasses and shoes, earplugs or muffs, hard hats,
respirators, or coveralls, vests and full body suits.

What can be done to ensure proper use of personal protective equipment?

All personal protective equipment should be safely designed and constructed, and should
be maintained in a clean and reliable fashion. It should fit comfortably, encouraging
worker use. If the personal protective equipment does not fit properly, it can make the
difference between being safely covered or dangerously exposed. When engineering,
work practice, and administrative controls are not feasible or do not provide sufficient
protection, employers must provide personal protective equipment to their workers and
ensure its proper use.

Employers are also required to train each worker required to use personal
protective equipment to know:

• When it is necessary
 • What kind is necessary
• How to properly put it on, adjust, wear and take it off
• The limitations of the equipment
• Proper care, maintenance, useful life, and disposal of the equipment

Even where engineering controls and safe systems of work have been applied,
some hazards might remain. PPE is needed in these cases to reduce the risk.

• the lungs, e.g. from breathing in contaminated air;

• the head and feet, e.g. from falling materials;
• the eyes, e.g. from flying particles or splashes of corrosive liquids;
• the skin, e.g. from contact with corrosive materials;
• the body, e.g. from extremes of heat or cold.

Selection and use

Employers should ask themselves the following questions:

• Who is exposed and to what?

• How long are they exposed for?
• How much are they exposed to?

Types of PPE that can be used

• Eyes
• Head and neck
• Ears
• Hands and arms
• Feet and legs
• Lungs
• Whole body
 Process and Plant Safety

Process and Plant Safety. Protection of humans and the environment from the hazards
posed by technical plants. It has been in practice for over 100 years. Technologies have
become better with time. Today, risks are avoided in a systematic manner. There exist
internationally acceptable procedures for this purpose. Risk analysis are done and in
doing so, adequate safety measures are derived. All the possible hazards need to be first
identified and evaluated. This starts from identifying the hazardous material and
hazardous chemical reactions. Such reactions are examined experimentally in
laboratories. Pressure, temperature and flow parameters are monitored in a technical
plant, in the event of malfunction.

Safety engineers in the PPS especially process the following tasks:

• Hazard and risk analysis
• Calculation of effects of events
• Evaluation of hazardous materials and hazardous chemical reactions
• Simulation of processes in pressurized apparatus in computation programs
• Sizing of protection equipment
• Design of containment equipment
• Calculation of propagation of hazardous material in the environment
• Recommendation of protection measures and evaluation of existing measures

Hazard. When we refer to hazards in relation to occupational safety and health the most
commonly used definition is ‘A Hazard is a potential source of harm or adverse health
effect on a person or persons’.

The terms Hazard and Risk are often used interchangeably but this simple example
explains the difference between the two.

Risk. When we refer to risk in relation to occupational safety and health the most
commonly used definition is ‘risk is the likelihood that a person may be harmed or suffers
adverse health effects if exposed to a hazard.’

Risk management in safety. Safety risk management encompasses the assessment

and mitigation of safety risks. The objective of safety risk management is to assess the
risks associated with identified hazards and to develop and implement effective and
appropriate mitigations.
 Workplace accidents: common causes and consequences

Some of the consequences of employee accidents include:

• Personal hardships [pain and suffering]

• Loss of work
• Reduced productivity
• Poor employee morale
• Increased unnecessary costs to the organization

Some consequences associated with customer accidents include:

• Poor company reputation

• Decreased customer satisfaction
• Potential litigation.
• Reduced repeat business and referrals

Responsibilities of Employer

• A safe way for employees to carry out their work.

• A safe building in which to work.
• Suitable materials and equipment.
• A safe system of work with proper training and supervision.