(47au) Management of Process Safety Performance Indicators

Those working in the oil and gas industry are reminded with depressing regularity of the importance of process safety management, as post-incident investigation invariably points to one or more deficiencies related to process safety as root causes.  Clearly, recent process safety related incidents and the development in process safety regulations have enabled wider awareness and adoption of process safety performance indicators (PSPI).

However, the primary challenge has been related to the selection, collection, analysis, and management of key process safety performance indicators that will eventually contribute to improving process safety in general.  A systematic approach to manage these indicators is still evolving. 

In this paper, the authors highlight a methodology for selection and measurement of process safety performance indicators which can help drive continuous process safety improvement and manage the performance of critical process safety barriers such as pressure relief devices, instrumentation systems, and mechanical integrity programs. This methodology considers complex set of intra-related factors and parameters that are available to the process operator; however, lack of systematic utilization of such parameters may hinder the realization of valuable process safety trends.  In addition, the benefits and drawbacks of manual and automated systems for tracking near real time PSPI’s will be presented.