(115c) Improving Process Safety Culture through Developing and Maintaining the Sense of Vulnerability at All Levels in the Organization

The level of process safety in any organization depends on the safety culture that exists in that organization. Culture is termed how employees are following safety even when no one is watching. Organization culture can be influenced, learnt and changed. Building a risk conscious organization depends on the competency of the personnel who are able to understand and apply the process safety concepts. In this the key term is “risk Conscious”. In building a risk conscious organization, the attribute of maintaining sense of vulnerability plays a major role. The term ‘sense of vulnerability’ includes the following

1. Personnel are having thorough understanding about the process risk that exists in their plant
2. Ability to sense the foreboding of failure/ weaknesses and what can go wrong in their activities such as handling hazardous chemicals, nonroutine tasks, Inspection, testing and maintenance of critical equipment etc. that might foreshadow the serious / catastrophic events
3. Prevent attitude of “I have done many times and it cannot happen here”

The sense of Vulnerability enables the operating personnel to take appropriate risk related decisions during stressful situation and management to put their efforts on high-risk operations. The sense of vulnerability helps to improve shared understanding on risk perception, validation of healthiness of critical barriers, demonstrate safe behaviors there by improve process safety culture in the organization

This paper will share experience of the Chola MS Risk services gained through implementation of PSM in various sectors across the country specific to the level of sense of vulnerability that exist in the organization with field related examples and challenges faced by the Indian Industries in improving the same.

This paper will also highlight that the Sense of Vulnerability also brings in the sense of vigilance over various parameters even in apparently steady-state, smooth operations. Even slight changes in critical parameters will ‘ring a cautionary bell’ where there is a sense of vulnerability.

Some challenges in maintaining sense of vulnerability

1. Complacency of working group due to overconfidence
2. Failure to learn from past incident
3. Volatile memory of organization

This paper attempts to discuss these challenges in detail and Various approaches that are practically adopted by the organization to improve the attribute of Sense of Vulnerability using case studies. Some of the methodologies for improving sense of vulnerability are given below

1. Identify Hazards: Involvement of operating personnel in identifying the hazards through walk arounds, involvement of operators in risk assessment studies, carrying out work permit audit etc.,
2. Encourage to report: Encouraging employees to report more of Tier -4 and Tier-3 incidents which enables to identify the early warning or symptoms in process safety issues and help to prevent catastrophic incidents. Through this approach, employee tends to think, what can go wrong in their work and be vigilant about process safety issues.
3. Empower: Empowering individuals to raise concerns on process safety issues and enable collaborative approach in ensuring safety – This paper will discuss about how collaborative approach among different stakeholders benefits to identify risks and enable to improve sense of vulnerability in the organizations
4. Management review: This plays a major role in improving performance of process safety by focusing on dashboard consisting of leading and lagging indicators. It is equivalent to health screening done by the senior doctor using various health test and scan reports. Through this examination leadership can bring in their expertise and fore see the symptoms or pattern of failures which needs an immediate attention to prevent serious process safety events. This paper will bring in common issues in management review process and how structured Management review enables to strengthen process safety culture through sense of vulnerability approach.

This paper also highlights the above narratives with applicable case studies and showcase how it is beneficial to make the organisation realise that sense of vulnerability helps the organization make better risk related decisions and increases the likelihood that individuals will take proper action in a challenging situation and enables to improve overall process safety culture.