Guidelines for Preventing Human Error in Process Safety

Process safety metrics is a topic of frequent conversation within chemical industry associations. Guidelines for Process Safety Metrics provides basic information on process safety performance indicators, including a comprehensive list of metrics for measuring performance and examples as to how they can be successfully applied over both the short and long term. For engineers, insurers, corporate traininers, military personnel, government officials, students, and managers involved in production, product and process development, Guidelines for Process Safety Metrics can help determine appropriate metrics useful in monitoring performance and improving process safety programs. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

This book helps advance process safety in a key area of interest. Currently, no literature exists which is solely dedicated to process safety for the bioprocessing industry. There are texts, guidelines, and standards on biosafety at the laboratory level and for industrial hygiene, but no guidelines for large-scale production facilities. In fact, biosafety is largely defined as a field that promotes safe laboratory practices, procedures and use of containment equipment and facilities. Additionally, biomedical engineers, biologists, or other professionals without chemical engineering training or knowledge of inherently safe design are designing many of these facilities.

This book helps advance process safety in a key area of interest. Currently, no literature exists which is solely dedicated to process safety for the bioprocessing industry. There are texts, guidelines, and standards on biosafety at the laboratory level and for industrial hygiene, but no guidelines for large-scale production facilities. In fact, biosafety is largely defined as a field that promotes safe laboratory practices, procedures and use of containment equipment and facilities. Additionally, biomedical engineers, biologists, or other professionals without chemical engineering training or knowledge of inherently safe design are designing many of these facilities.

The process industry has developed integrated process safety management programs to reduce or eliminate incidents and major consequences, such as injury, loss of life, property damage, environmental harm, and business interruption. Good documentation practices are a crucial part of retaining past knowledge and experience, and avoiding relearning old lessons. Following an introduction, which offers examples of how proper documentation might have prevented major explosions and serious incidents, the 21 sections in this book clearly present aims, goals, and methodology in all areas of documentation. The text contains examples of dozens of needed forms, lists of relevant industry organizations, sources for software, references, OSHA regulations, sample plans, and more.

Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety provides guidelines for industries that manufacture, consume, or handle chemicals, by focusing on new ways to design, correct, or improve process safety management practices. This new framework for thinking about process safety builds upon the original process safety management ideas published in the early 1990s, integrates industry lessons learned over the intervening years, utilizes applicable «total quality» principles (i.e., plan, do, check, act), and organizes it in a way that will be useful to all organizations – even those with relatively lower hazard activities – throughout the life-cycle of a company.

Batch reaction systems pose unique challenges to process safety managers because they do not operate in a steady state. The sequence of processing steps, and frequent start-ups and shutdowns, increase the possibility of human errors and equipment failures. And, since batch plants are often designed for shared use, frequent modification of piping and layout may occur, resulting in complex «management of change» issues. This book identifies the singular concerns of batch reaction systems—including potential sources of unsafe conditions—and provides a «how-to» guide for the practicing engineer in dealing with them by applying appropriate practices to prevent accidents.

In today’s competitive economy, companies often augment in-house production by outsourcing chemical reaction processes and distillation, drying, formulating, blending, and packaging operations. While most of these tolling, or contracted manufacturing services, proceed without incident, recent major accidents have pointed to weaknesses in some tolling arrangements, such as reactivity of materials and processes. This Guidelines book provides the reader with proven procedures to improve process safety throughout the life cycle of a contracted manufacturing operation. Extensive checklists and examples used throughout the book make it a valuable learning tool and reference for companies conducting toll manufacturing, or considering outsourcing manufacturing operations.

The 2nd edition provides an update of information since the publication of the first edition including best practices for managing process safety developed by industry as well as incorporate the additional process safety elements. In addition the book includes a focus on maintaining and improving a Process Safety Management (PSM) System. This 2nd edition also provides «how to information to» determine process safety performance status, implement one or more new elements into an existing PSM system, maintain or improve an existing PSM system, and manage future process safety performance.

This updated version of one of the most popular and widely used CCPS books provides plant design engineers, facility operators, and safety professionals with key information on selected topics of interest. The book focuses on process safety issues in the design of chemical, petrochemical, and hydrocarbon processing facilities. It discusses how to select designs that can prevent or mitigate the release of flammable or toxic materials, which could lead to a fire, explosion, or environmental damage. Key areas to be enhanced in the new edition include inherently safer design, specifically concepts for design of inherently safer unit operations and Safety Instrumented Systems and Layer of Protection Analysis. This book also provides an extensive bibliography to related publications and topic-specific information, as well as key information on failure modes and potential design solutions.

At last, a book that covers safety procedures and standards with information that is rarely available outside of proprietary materials. A comprehensive source for basic and essential operations and procedures in use in any facility, the book offers chemical operators and first line supervisors guidance in applying appropriate practices to prevent accidents, and suggests which practices to avoid.