(45a) It Happened Here: First-Hand Accounts of Significant Events

Improvement in process safety performance easily leads to complacency. Employees and Managers, not witnessing a significant event for several years, stop believing it can happen to them and their co-workers.  Experienced employees who have personally witnessed the breadth of change tend to appreciate the current state more, given the perspective they have gained from living through events of the past. 

Flint Hills Resources (FHR), a subsidiary company of Koch Industries, Inc. (KII), sought to collect a number of these first-hand accounts of significant events from a single facility’s past for many uses both in and outside of FHR. The express purpose of this effort is consistent with The Vision 20/20 Industry Tenet of Committed Culture: maintaining a sense of vulnerability, striving to make that connection in an impactful way.  Management in both KII and FHR strongly supported the effort.

17 individual interviews were conducted focusing on significant events from a single refinery.  Events ranged back to the early 1980s and extended to near miss events since 2010.  All interviews were performed without scripts or high technology props, making it a format that any facility could use.  The video series is called “It Happened Here,” to instantly inform the audience that the events had occurred directly onsite.

Participants in the interviews were in some cases reluctant, noting, “these are the events and details that I’ve been trying to forget.” However, each interviewee came forward and courageously told their story driven by the need for both current and future employees to understand what ‘sense of unease’ really means.

The results of this effort are 17 short (3-5 minute) videos with accompanying fact sheets to be used in Safety meetings, PHAs, Process Safety education sessions, and additional uses yet to be determined. Fact sheets contain key details of the event, layers of protection in place or missing, changes since the event, as well as discussion questions tailored to the specific event featured.  Reception to date has been positive, and other FHR and KII facilities are poised to continue the “It Happened Here” efforts on a more broad basis to increase the impact of the message and promote a healthy respect for process safety across the company for years to come.

Note- During the presentation of this talk, 1-3 of the FHR It Happened Here Videos and corresponding fact sheets would be shown to the audience to provide context for the effort.  These videos & fact sheets would be shown at the Conference, but not available after the conference nor as part of the Conference proceedings.