Category Archives: Process Safety

Process Safety and Low Oil Prices

Written on March 1, 2015 at 12:00 am, by

In this Tip of the Month, we reflect back to December 2008, and get a reminder from the United States Chemical Safety Board (CSB) to remain focused on process safety and accident prevention during this time of lower oil prices. During the economic downturn of 2008, oil prices dropped significantly. The latest drop in crudeContinue Reading

The Importance of Leadership in Process Safety Management

Written on August 1, 2014 at 12:00 am, by

The first pillar of Risk Based Process Safety Management is “Commitment to Process Safety.”  A formalized mentoring system can ensure workforce involvement, compliance with company and regulatory requirements, increase the competency of personnel and enhance the process safety culture of the entire organization.  Within this element there are several essential features that lead to aContinue Reading

Debriefing Jobs Provides Several Benefits Associated With Process Safety

Written on January 1, 2014 at 8:00 am, by

A pillar of Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS) is Learn from Experience.  The work we do and the processes we use to analyze our work provide significant learning opportunities to enhance process safety competency.  This is a derivative of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle [1], but many times we fail to take advantage of the learningContinue Reading

What is Mentoring?

Written on February 1, 2013 at 6:30 am, by and

What is Mentoring? In this Tip of the Month, we explore how process safety competency can be enhanced through mentoring programs. This TOTM is the paper that was developed by JMC Instructor/Consultants Clyde Young and Keith Hodges presentation at the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) 8th Global Conference on Process Safety in April, 2012. Continue Reading

Should unplanned maintenance jobs be recorded as near misses?

Written on October 1, 2012 at 8:46 am, by

OSHA mentions “near-misses” as recordable requirements in several passages as: “An unplanned and unforeseeable event that could have resulted, but did not result, in human injury, damage to property or the environment or other form of loss”.  And we know that all industrial maintenance organizations have a history of reactive, run-to-failure-then-run-to fix, maintenance management behaviors. Continue Reading

Analyzing Engineering Tasks to Minimize or Eliminate Mistakes

Written on September 1, 2011 at 6:00 am, by

In the April, 2011, Tip of the Month (TOTM), we looked at a simple, graphical representation of process safety competency.  This TOTM will follow up on that by asking a simple question: “When examining catastrophic incidents, what are the typical mistakes that engineers make?” This question was asked of me at a lunch and learnContinue Reading

A Simplified, Graphical Representation of Process Safety Competency Development

Written on April 1, 2011 at 8:00 am, by

In this Tip of the Month, we explore how process safety competency can be identified and developed using a simple model for guidance. This TOTM is the paper that was developed by JMC Instructor/Consultant Clyde Young for a poster presentation at the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) 7th Global Congress on Process Safety inContinue Reading

Three Simple Things to Improve Process Safety Management

Written on April 1, 2010 at 5:06 pm, by

In this Tip of the Month, we look at how to deal with some of the challenges of managing process safety.  This TOTM is an excerpt of a paper presented by JMC Instructor/Consultant, Clyde Young at the 2008 Mary K. O’Connor Process Safety Symposium.  This TOTM continues where the February 2009, TOTM left off. When thereContinue Reading

Three Simple Things to Improve Process Safety Management

Written on November 1, 2009 at 3:47 pm, by

In this Tip of the Month, we look at how to deal with some of the challenges of managing process safety.  This TOTM is an excerpt of a paper presented by JMC Instructor/Consultant, Clyde Young at the 2008 Mary K. O’Connor Process Safety Symposium.  This TOTM continues where the February 2009, TOTM left off. Processes areContinue Reading

Three Simple Things to Improve Process Safety Management

Written on February 1, 2009 at 9:20 pm, by

In this Tip of the Month, we look at how to deal with some of the challenges of managing process safety.  This TOTM is an excerpt of a paper presented by JMC Instructor/Consultant, Clyde Young at the 2008 Mary K. O’Connor Process Safety Symposium. “Process safety practices and formal safety management systems have been in placeContinue Reading