(149a) Using Team Building to Focus the Intersection of Diversity and Inclusion with Process Safety Practice

Within the past decade or so, process safety practice has undergone an important transition. While the importance of process safety has a long history of practice by many organizations, the profession of chemical engineering began to formalize such practices with the development of Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS) by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). RBPS has evolved over time, but its importance was recognized by OSHA early in the process, and OSHA included aspects of RBPS in its Process Safety Management (PSM) requirements. One of the important principles developed and practiced as a part of RBPS is that clear, relevant communication and training is critical to the effective practice of process safety. The importance of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) is broadly recognized as important in our society, and in its most basic sense, diversity (bringing together people with different backgrounds) and inclusion (all those involved participating on an equal footing) are reflected in many aspects of RBPS. This paper discusses the intersection of D&I with process safety and particularly how training students to work effectively in teams supports these practices.