(18a) New Directions for Process Safety Management

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of OSHA’s implementation of the Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard.  Has the PSM standard reduced the number and severity of major chemical incidents?  Has the standard remained effective in light of new consensus safety guidelines and changes in technology?  If not, why not?   This presentation will discuss key lessons on the effectiveness of the PSM standard drawn from the experience of the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and will suggest possible new directions for process safety regulation and practice.  

Facilities with major hazards are constantly changing and increasing in technical and organizational complexity.  Modern process safety practices have evolved to give attention to inherent safety technology, human factors, management of organizational change, layers of protection analysis and safety instrumented systems.   In response to experience and the changing understanding of the nature of process safety hazards, the Center for Chemical Process Safety issued many new guidelines and the CSB made numerous recommendations for changes in the OSHA standard and practices.  Yet OSHA has never updated the standard and no changes are currently planned. 

It is important that we examine the 20-year experience of the PSM standard to consider new approaches that may be more effective.  Many advanced countries use a different approach for managing major hazard operations.  One risk management approach is the use of the safety case, which is in wide-spread use internationally.  CSB’s investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has included an extensive examination of the safety case approach.  The presentation will share CSB’s current findings on the use of the safety case model and its potential impact on new directions for process safety.