(92e) Conducting PHA’s in Companies with a Young PSM Culture

The presentation will suggest methods to achieve “acceptable” PHA studies in companies at the start of their PSM journey.

Some companies do not know what good looks like for PHA’s. The author has facilitated PHA’s for companies such as:

• DuPont
• Shell
• Suncor
• Husky
• Rio Tinto
• And others...

It is important to conduct PHA’s using Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEP). The author has worked for companies and also as an external consultant providing PHA facilitation services.

All PHA’s are based on Process Safety Information (PSI). All companies have some gaps in their PSI, however companies with a burgeoning PSM culture have more gaps. If these gaps compromise the PHA quality, it is up to the facilitator to stop the review.

All good PHA practices require a review of PSI before launching the PHA process, this is normally a gate in the PHA Charter, however, we often see during the PHA gaps in the PSI and different interpretation of the PSI which can lead to different scenarios.

With gaps in the PSI, the facilitator needs to document hypothesis in order to progress, with competing understanding, this becomes unmanageable.

An initial training for all participants establishes ground rules and sets the path forward. This is critical for participants in the first PHA.

It is good to track the progress of multiple day PHA’s in order to understand if the team can meet it’s time commitment to deliver a quality PHA. As some PHA’s have most of the complicated nodes at the front end of the review. It is common to have achieved only 10 to 20% of the nodes by the 50% mark. The facilitator needs to inform the site whether the allocated time is sufficient or if additional time will be required.

Seasoned teams will cover more nodes than team made up of first timers in the same time period. For this reason, the facilitator makes assumptions on the team’s experience to propose a length to the PHA. The facilitator rarely knows the make-up of the team prior to the review.

It is important to document any risk reduction found by the team to insure these are not “run to failure” and are maintained in order to claim the appropriate Risk Reduction Factors (RRF). The are often called Critical Controls (mining), PSM Critical (Petroleum) or other synonyms.

As with all PSM, it is always recommended to maintain a sense of Chronic Unease. In order to achieve this, it is recommended to present during the PHA a list of site incidents and industry incidents of interest.

In order to have quality input to the PHA, a minimum participation SHALL be maintained during the PHA. As a minimum these expertise’s need to be maintained:

• Operations
• Process
• Mechanical, may be mechanical engineering, and/or maintainers.
• Instrument and electrical (often called process control)
• Facilitator
• Scribe

There may be other critical participants, depending on the scope of the PHA, such as technology providers.

Location of the PHA meetings: since these people can be called away from the PHA, it is recommended to conduct the PHA reviews in a location away from their normal work areas, but not far enough to prevent them from responding to real emergencies.

This paper will elaborate on strategies to optimize PHA outcomes for companies at the start of their PSM journeys.