Our First Taste of Process Safety Culture, and How It Impacted Our Lifestyles.

Our journey in process safety began several years back. However, out taste of the American culture began prior to that. Having had overseas education in engineering, before we moved to the United States at different times, were a huge change in culture, and mindset for us. Differences between a developed nation and a developing country, can be huge; was our big learning in that process. This was observed in every aspect of engineering – concept, application, and implementation.

Early years of engineering, while limited to the process world, brought constant comparative apprehensions in how engineering was practiced between Asia and North America. A turning point emerged as we entered the world of process safety. This was an evolutionary journey for us. Understanding the expectations of OSHA PSM and EPA RMP regulations, and how they were implemented were a huge eye-opener.

As we got deeper into this process safety and risk management journey, regular exchanges of ideas and observations, made us conclude that while there are regulatory differences in various regions of the world, importance of process safety culture is literally embracing a safety mindset with the constant reminder that safety must be practiced 24/7 and there is no holiday for safety - be in people safety or process safety.

The authors share their experiences of moving to the United States at different times in their careers in Process Safety, while bringing out the common learnings of human performance along with the importance of the value of human lives. There was a common understanding in these core values in various regions of the world, however was practiced and implemented in different ways, resulting in good and bad outcomes.