(138a) Using PS Incident Warning Signs to Increase Hazard Awareness and Sense of Vulnerability

Many factors across the Chemical Process Industry (CPI) are moving in directions that jeopardize long-term, stable, process operations. This places people, the environment and company assets at risk. Reduced oil prices are placing more cost pressure on the companies in that sector. Employee turnover at the operator, engineer and manager levels negatively impacts consistent operations and direction. A key difference between a longer term employee and one who has only been in their position for more than several years is awareness of process hazards. Unfortunately we earn our process safety experience the hard way, by having incidents. It is possible to shorten that learning curve by using past incidents, from inside the company, the industry or global one as tools to expand hazard awareness. Other tools are the checklists from the “Recognizing Catastrophic Incident Warning Signs in the Process Industries” book (CCPS 2012). This paper will present several methods for presenting incidents and a workshop format for using the warning signs checklists. The materials presented can be used for many situations: toolbox meetings, crew safety meetings, PHA review of past incidents or general process hazards awareness training. Many of the warning signs listed point to leadership gaps, which broadens the potential uses for these tools.