(52ay) Implementing Life Critical Standards and Training to Enhance Process Safety in Remote Location

A remote (non-U.S.) methanol plant identified a project to improve Life Critical Safety standards and to implement a comprehensive electronic Learning Management System (LMS).

The purpose of the project included:

• Identifying site specific roles and responsibilities
• Detailing location specific practices
• Clarifying facility-specific expectations
• Improving practices that were deficient
• Optimizing training process efficiency for both onsite employees and contractors traveling and working in the overseas location
• Highlight visibility of training status

The plant chose to implement the principles of the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) regulatory program in order to optimize safe and reliable operations.

The Life Critical Standards consisted of those defined as Life Saving Rules by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP). These standards were seen as critical to process safety because they demonstrate compliance with the Hot Work Permitting element of PSM, the Operating Procedures element of PSM for bypassing safety procedures and over rides, and procedures that prevent catastrophic process events such as Energy Isolation and Safe Lifting.

The LMS was viewed as critical to the Training element of PSM which includes training on the hazards of the plant processes as well as all Life Critical Standards. As OSHA’s PSM requires the organization’s training program to be well documented, the electronic LMS allowed the facility to meet this requirement.

The plant has many challenges and on this particular site these included raising the process safety culture of the national workforce, and bringing in short-term contractors from multiple countries, many of whom have different safety backgrounds.

Methods

Cross-functional teams were developed allowing input from all departments. These teams provided input to clarify local requirements and identify areas for improvement in their current standards. Teams met weekly and targeted a draft standard every 2 weeks. Review processes included both electronic review as well as face to face review meetings to ensure input from all stakeholders.

A further cross functional team was also assembled to evaluate electronic LMS’s. Two in-house systems used for Operator training and ethics training were evaluated, along with commercially available off-the-shelf and cloud-based systems. A cloud-based system was fully evaluated and selected. Among its distinguishing features were

• Ease of use
• Ability to upload current material
• Ability to upload third party material
• Ability to expand and contract the system suiting the regular workforce and periodic workforce (Turnaround’s, Outages, 3^rd Party Vendors).

Results

The Standard revisions and the LMS delivered high impact improvements across the organization.

Results of Standard revisions included:

• Process Safety boundaries were revised to ensure that process equipment was included while non process buildings and facilities were not included. This delineation was helpful regarding the application of hot work and work permits.
• The Safe Work Permit Standard was revised. New work permit forms and tools enhanced the permit system effectiveness.
• The Energy Isolation Standard was updated to specify isolation expectations for critical compressors and equipment.
• The Safe Lifting Standard was revised clarifying responsible roles for lift planning.
• The Working at Heights Standard was revised covering the storage, inspections and maintenance of harnesses as well as improved consistency of application of the standard.

Benefits of the selected Learning Management System include:

• The Learning Management System allowed visibility to all employees regarding the status of their training.
• It allowed contractors traveling from other countries to complete their required training online prior to traveling to the plant.
• The LMS license fees are adjustable allowing for system user numbers to be increased as needed to suit events such as turnarounds and special projects.

Conclusions

Process safety in a remote non-U.S. methanol plant was enhanced with a fit for purpose Standard revision project and the development of an electronic Learning Management System.

Benefits of the project include:

1. A Turnaround in 2020 with 200 contractors from other countries allowed completion of their Process Safety training before traveling to the site.
2. During the COVID pandemic, employees could complete their training remotely and online thereby minimizing face to face training.
3. The LMS allows visibility and reporting of Process Safety and Life Critical Safety training across the organization. Training metrics and targets can also be monitored as part of the business’s Management System.

Post implementation, the facility personnel have identified a range of Lessons Learned from the Life Critical Standards and LMS project.

These include

• Assigning owners for each standard to maintain and champion the standard. Management System accountability and safety culture improved with standard champions.
• Multiple Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) ensure that the LMS remains up to date as new users are added, delete when expired, and that to update assignments and their frequency is current.
• A cloud-based solution provided a simpler solution when compared to hosting on local servers especially in IT resources which were far fewer than with local hosting and software updates.
• Reporting training metrics has improved timeliness of training completion and motivated departments and individuals to have training completed on time