Understanding the Other Side of Process Safety

Process safety techniques have improved over the years. Better designs and rigorous Process Hazard analysis have resulted in reduction of incidents in the Process industry. However, complexity of process plants and the nature of the incidents pose challenges in understanding and mitigating potential incidents. Better hardware designs and highly trained staff need not necessarily result in improved safety of the process system. Safety is an emergent property of a system and it cannot be considered in isolation from the society and business environment in which it operates. Safety is the result of dynamic interaction of the constituents of total system and has to be viewed as such to understand and improve it. Drawing from the latest research from fields such as Organizational Behavior, Psychology and Systems theory, this paper will examine the basics of the other; softer side of Process safety. It will emphasize that a holistic systems approach, which can integrate and visualize the dynamics of the elements of PSM program with the other emergent properties of the system, will be able to offer a better insight in to Process Safety.

In conclusion, the paper will demonstrate that softer aspects are equally important. An approach that combines both technical and softer aspects of Process Safety will be definitely helpful in meeting the challenges in Process Safety Management.