This ‘Risk to Resilience’ five-part blog series explores key practices in process safety management (PSM), how organizations can address key challenges, improve PSM performance, and build safer working environments.
Many process safety incidents are a result of risks that were apparent, but the knowledge of them was not shared with the right people at the right time.
Every HAZOP, near-miss, and management-of-change (MoC) review generates valuable insights. But if these remain in siloed information systems, or worse, in someone’s head, then an incident could be difficult or even impossible to prevent. Knowledge becomes power only if it flows and that means information sharing and quick access are vital.
This is among the greatest obstacles in reducing workplace risks and hazards. Below is a summary of the five biggest challenges in successfully executing process safety management (PSM) strategies, and how organizations can overcome them. The good news is these are not technology problems. All relate to leadership and process/systems design problems. Digital tools can help, but only if there is a foundation built upon the right behavior and governance.
1) Breaking down silos and creating a single source of truth
As previously mentioned, safety knowledge often resides in separate systems. For example, process hazard analysis (PHA) reports in one tool, incident data in another, procedures in SharePoint, and plenty of other insights, information, and data in emails. Adding further to the disparity is a range of different stakeholders and competing priorities—engineering perhaps having one view, operations another, maintenance yet another.
Different systems, teams, and sites create fragmentation. The result? Valuable information and lessons learned can be lost or simply won’t be accessible quickly enough. A process engineer may be challenged by operations to expand the operating envelope of a process or piece of equipment. Someone from the engineering team knows about the design limits, somebody in the inspection team knows about the regulatory limits, people in environment, health, and safety (EHS) know about a past MoC. But if a quick answer is required, it’s a matter of chasing down these people or extracting information from three or four different platforms.
System interoperability is vital as is cross-functional governance for safety knowledge that provides one version of the truth for hazards, controls, MoCs, lessons learned, and procedures. It’s not about building a giant database but making the right knowledge accessible when it’s needed.
2) Capturing inherent knowledge
Extremely valuable insights often live in the heads of experienced operators, maintenance technicians, or engineers. If and when they retire or move on, that knowledge could walk out the door with them. It is especially true in mature industries like oil & gas, that often struggle to attract young talent and face high retirement rates.
Organizations need to build structured ways to capture knowledge, such as digital logbooks and procedures, advanced visualization tools, systems to monitor and manage safety-critical elements, and platforms to capture and manage lessons learned.
It should be possible to quickly locate the findings and procedures used during the latest turnaround to clean and enter a piece of equipment, for example. It must be easy and part of a workflow rather than an extra chore. This is where digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) become powerful enablers.
If knowledge isn’t captured, teams risk repeating the same mistakes or losing vital insights altogether.
3) Harmonizing methodologies and standardizing safety language and formats
Some people call it a “critical control,” others a “critical barrier.” Same thing, different names. One site uses a 5x5 risk matrix, another uses 5x6.
Some sites include inherent and residual risk in their Job Hazard Analysis, others only inherent risk. This inconsistency undermines risk communication and awareness, kills cross-site learning, and makes analytics complex.
A better approach is to harmonize taxonomies for hazards, controls, and incident reporting across the organization. Speaking the same safety language is essential to effective knowledge sharing.
4) Balancing the need for safety and business results
This is often a key consideration for leaders at multiple levels—heads of operations, site managers, and executive leadership. Everyone needs to stay safe, yet productivity must also be continually improved. It can feel like a trade-off between keeping production running and maintaining strict safety standards. But safety and business don’t need to be antagonistic.
Fewer incidents, less downtime, effective procedures, and risk-based decisions keep people safe, and it’s good for business. So, with the help of modern PSM solutions, you could reduce the time to create a permit and isolation plan by 60%. Or predict which safety-critical equipment might fail in the next few weeks so maintenance teams can prioritize it. This kind of efficiency improves safety and boosts production efficiency. The proverbial win/win.
Safety done right should enhance productivity, not slow it down.
5) Embedding knowledge into workflows
Capturing and standardizing knowledge is useless if it sits in a folder or a standalone tool. People need it at the point of work, when they are planning a job, issuing a permit, or responding to an alarm. The right information is needed at the right moment.
You might have the most advanced tool for process hazard analysis (PHA), but if maintenance teams can’t use knowledge captured in a HAZOP or LOPA to prioritize activities, eventually some things may be missed. If operations teams can’t access lessons learned in their daily work, there is a risk of repeating incidents.
Relevant knowledge needs to be embedded into the tools people already use such as permit and isolation systems that guide best practices, incident learnings that pop up when preparing a job, heat maps showing the impact of MoCs, and barrier degradation in the area where work will be performed. Knowledge should find the user, not the other way around.
Stay tuned for the next post in our Risk to Resilience blog series where we will explore the Key Foundations of Process Safety Management.
Wolters Kluwer Enablon Process Safety Management software and safety management tools let you implement a digitized PSM framework that identifies, evaluates and controls hazards related to processes using hazardous chemicals.