(101a) The Daily Trials and Tribulations of Managing a Site Level PSM Program

Through our Global Safety and Environmental, Merck has long been an advocate of pushing the boundaries of Process Safety Management. Even in the infancy of its global program, Merck has been ensuring that new processes were designed with PSM in their forefront. Since OSHA implemented its PSM Standard over 30 years ago, Merck is still going above and beyond to ensure that PSM is constantly growing and improving, both at the corporate level and at the plant level.

As a site’s PSM program matures, it is vital to keep it evergreen; constantly testing its robustness, and continuously making it a stronger program. This paper and subsequent presentation will demonstrate how Merck designs and optimizes process plant safety into a process, both from its inception and continuously throughout its lifecycle. Included in the discussion will be the use of Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) LOPA in association with Process Hazard Analyses throughout process design and operation, going beyond regulatory requirements for the management of PSM covered materials, and optimizing the management of high-risk work. The paper and presentation will conclude with a site-specific example of engineering controls implementation to manage flammable materials in a process below threshold quantities in order to keep a process from being OSHA PSM covered