Integration of Human and Technical Barriers for Reducing Risks

Ultimate success of PSM is measured through effective risk reduction. It is but natural for engineers to focus on technical and engineering barriers to reduce risk. Studies show that technical and/or engineering barriers constitute approximately around 50% and the remaining 50% is human barriers or barriers involving human intervention. As such this means that the barriers that we have put in place is in adequate to prevent the occurrence of incidents and does not mitigate potential risks.

Many companies tend to do high quality technical studies and quantitative risk analysis and implement engineering controls and this is mandatory. There are others that have done the technical studies but do very little to follow up on implementing the recommendations from these studies. This can be attributed to the sheer number of recommendations that can be overwhelming. It can also be attributed to the fact that there is no proper way of prioritizing the recommendation in terms of highly critical vs less critical. So, despite significant amount of time, money and effort, the contribution to risk reduction is limited. Unfortunately, the risk is not reduced until the documents and paper is converted in to practical and effective controls in the field. 

SCG Chemicals adopted a practical approach that is driven with a specific purpose in mind and that is managing risks proactively. Employees from the individual unit operations were engaged in identifying the hazards, hazardous events, consequences, evaluating the risks, defining the gaps and additional barriers to reduce risks. This helped address the question of “why” a particular barrier is in place and enhance the risk ownership and awareness of employees at all level. This approach facilitated the integration of human barriers in to technical barriers and contributed in risk communication to leadership and the importance of risk mindset and behavior and competencies that focuses on managing risks.

A bi-focal approach to risk reduction was adopted. The short term focus was to address deviations in the field which if not addressed today can contribute to a potential catastrophic incident tomorrow. This enhanced operational discipline and prevented potential ‘normalization of deviations’. The longer term approach focused on re-doing structured PHAs and using the risk matrix to establish the levels of acceptable/unacceptable risks. Management decisions were then made to address the unacceptable risks with a rigorous follow up on implementing the critical recommendations. This process contributed to better outcomes in increased effectiveness of PSM while optimizing the money, time, and effort required. This paper will share the experience that SCG PSM Journey along with DuPont as a partner in implementing PSM to manage risks effectively and proactively.