Benchmarking - A Global and Asia-Pacific Perspective and Comparison of Process Safety Management Practices

Prepared for Presentation at

1st CCPS Asia-Pacific Conference on Process Safety

Qingdao, China

September 8 -10, 2013

Submitted by:

Scott Berger, Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)

Cindie Pridy, Phillip Townsend and Associates, Inc. (PTAI)

Keywords: benchmarking, gap analysis, metric, performance gap, process safety management system, risk based process safety element, survey, Asia-Pacific

Abstract

The vision and recommendation of industry-wide process safety excellence originated with the creation of the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS®[SB1] ) by AIChE following the December 3, 1984 Bhopal disaster, and has been refined and strengthened over time. Most recently, CCPS identified 20 process safety elements of Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS) to be used to drive continual improvement (CCPS, 2007). As organizations implement PSMS’s through a structured and systematic approach there is a realization that the Process Safety journey includes the need to develop an understanding of the current status of existing PSMS, sustain Process Safety performance, and sustain continuous improvement. Benchmarking the process of PSMS practices, with reference to industry peers, is a very useful tool to help identify and address the gaps compared to best performers.

Viewed from a risk based perspective, in 2009 CCPS selected PTAI to design a PSMS benchmarking program.  The CCPS benchmarking committee selected 6 of the 20 RBPS elements with the goal of seeking an understanding of the relationship between process safety outcomes and management practices. Benchmarking results of the global study provide participants element-specific quartile performance to the overall industry peers who participated in the study, as well as, specific Asia-Pacific peers. As part of the benchmarking process, the study develops and presents a gap analysis to senior management identifying key areas of improvement for implementing and evolving effective PSMS’s.

This paper starts from a global benchmarking perspective. A detailed discussion of the PSMS benchmarking methodology, the value proposition, and the experience of participants in developing an understanding of their current status of existing PSMS is presented. Specific attention is on comparing the similarities and differences between the Asia-Pacific peer group and the overall, global industry peer group.  Practices that will improve and sustain PSM performance from top performers are reviewed. The paper focuses on the journey to leverage from lessons learned through the enhancement of Process Safety knowledge and adopting best practices. Continuous improvement and excellence can be achieved through focusing on the most important decisions and behavior changes that leadership can make, closing the gap to the top performers, developing central and site specific action plans for improvement, and raising the internal level of all organizational units towards the that of the top-performing internal site.

Reference: CCPS, Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, AIChE, New York