Management of Change (MOC) Leading Indicator Developed to Improve Training and Process Safety Performance

Cabot Corporation is one of the leading carbon black manufacturers in the world with over 130 years in the market and has a portfolio in chemical specialties products as well. Part of its elements of success is the safety health and environmental program. Even though is not fully required in all its facilities, the OSHA PSM program has been implemented for the most part in Cabot’s safety practices. One of the key elements of the PSM program standards for Cabot is the MOC element. MOC ties together other key elements such as Process Safety Information, Hazard analysis and Pre-startup reviews among other indirect elements. In the period when the company stared using a new database to track MOCs and new improvements in the internal MOC procedures were deployed, different challenges arised. One of the main challenges was the MOC performance. In one of Cabot facilities after an internal audit was performed, actions were set up to identify means to improve MOC performance.  At the same time, as part of the global safety initiatives in Cabot Corporation, the concept of leading indicators was first introduced as a way to increase safety performance. As part of the action items from the internal audit, a root cause analysis concluded that for the most part, key MOC personnel training need to be enhanced in order to achieve better compliance with the MOC procedure. Using the leading indicators guideline and as well as training best practices, the facility started auditing the MOC process and with this a scoring approach was used to provide a base ground from where to apply specific and effective corrections on training and in performance itself. The results in performance not only in MOC and in other PSM elements made this program a best practice that started to be use by the whole corporation.

As part of this MOC performance initiative, key management support accompanied the efforts to use this practice and to promote sharing within the company. Other facilities and groups started using similar approach to this element.