Management of Change: The Cornerstone to Maintaining Process Safety

The global rollout of an incident management and action tracking system is no easy task.  Although everyone is trying to do the right thing from initial rollout, there are lessons learned along the way that will, in the end, solidify the already existing incident management system.  A mid-size, yet global company of about 3,500 employees learned and applied these lessons during a three-phase incident management system and software rollout to three different geographical areas: the Americas, Asia, and Europe.  The challenges faced were not only geographical and cultural; they were also a result of the different legacy safety philosophies that come with joint ventures and new partnerships in the ever changing chemical industry.

What was the initial approach?  Going back to basics, defining what an incident is, what types of incidents would be tracked, and what the requirements for an investigation were going to be.  This paired with the lessons that were learned after each phased rollout resulted in the successful implementation of a global incident management procedure and software system, and the lessons being continuously learned would make for an even more successful rollout in the future.