Transforming Towards a “Risk Thinking” Organization By Implementing RBI

2017 Middle East Process Safety
Conference

9-11 October 2017

Bahrein

Call for Papers

Title:

Transforming towards
a “Risk thinking” organization by implementing RBI

Authors:

Coen van Driel                                    Robert Kauer                          

Kienbaum Management Consultants     TÜV SÜD Industrie Service GmbH                   

Herikerbergweg
183                              Westendstr. 199                                                                      

1101
CN Amsterdam                            80686 Munich                                                                         

Netherlands                                         Germany                                                                                

coen.vandriel@kienbaum.com              robert.kauer@tuev-sued.de                              

Abstract:

Case study: RBI implementation at a petrochemical site in
Europe

The base for the implementation of a risk based inspection
methodology for optimizing risk performance was a process safety assessment at
a site in Europe owned by a multinational company operating various
petrochemical and chemical plants. The aim of the process safety assessment was
to identify the blind spots in the barriers that prevent incidents and to
create awareness in the organization of the improvement potential. In the area
of asset integrity a lot of good work has been done that is based on the
experienced and knowledgeable people in the plant. But two main challenges were
identified, risk thinking in all aspects of asset integrity and closing the
loop and the link to other disciplines to learn from the output of the process.
For example, addressing not only the statutory requirements for inspection but
also taking into account the risk of each relevant degradation mechanism and
linking in the RBI process the degradation mechanisms with the operating
window.

By showing the potential increase in safety and getting a
better insight in the asset performance, the sense of urgency for change was
created and the will to change established.

Before going into the details of realizing RBI
transformation what is RBI? Risk Based Inspection (RBI) is an integral part of
a holistic asset integrity management. The assessment determines the risk of a
loss of containment for static equipment, by determining the probability of a
failure induced by identified relevant degradation mechanisms and the safety
and business consequences of such a failure. The aim of the RBI program is to
achieve an optimal inspection program on the basis of the potential risks.

Sponsored by the Site Leadership team the RBI implementation
team started with the transformation project. The goal is to upgrade the inspection
program with a risk based approach to accomplish an even better integrity of
the static equipment on site and to have tailored inspection plans the address
the relevant degradation mechanisms by bringing in the knowledge of a
multidisciplinary team of mechanical, inspection, process, corrosion and
operation engineers.

The target of this project was to install an RBI program and
at the same time to overcome typical pitfalls 
during RBI implementations:

·        
RBI is only an inspection activity and not linked
to knowledge about degradation mechanisms/actual process conditions

·        
no implementation/ RBI master plan -> aimless
or unrealistic implementation time/everything at the same time

·        
Sense of urgency: many RBI projects are done as
a tick in the box and not with a thorough understanding of the value for the
organization. The results, RBI recommendations, are not fully realized in the
organization

Unique aspects of the implementation: a combination of
human, process and technical transformation expertise are part of the project
to make a sustainable implementation possible.

The success of the RBI Development phase is based on an
alignment between reliability engineers from the project, experts from the
companies headquarter as well as TÜV SÜD / Kienbaum to establish a common
understanding of RBI processes and tools among the participants from different
regions. Although the essence and the goal of RBI is the same the interpretation
of certain aspects of RBI can differ across the regions as well as the
regulatory boundary conditions.

The approach is based on the in-depth technical and RBI
knowledge and human/system driven transformation knowledge to make it happen.

AS RBI is one of the key columns of asset integrity and
being the backbone for Process Safety it is an excellent way to introduce Risk
thinking in the organization. The behavior is in the organization is gradually
changing towards a risk thinking behavior based on the implementation of RBI
followed by transforming RCM, SIL, do maintenance etc into risk based way of
working. As the processes of Process safety (see also figure 1) are interlinked
as the beams of a raft the risk based way of working is spread to the processes
as operating window, safe work processes, etc. In the end bringing risk
thinking into the core of the organization to enable an better performance in
reliability and process safety.

Figure 1: The “Risk at the Core of the Organization” model
(Kienbaum TuvSUD) enables a focus on all aspects which results into a high
performance.