(51b) Metrics Driven Decision Making Improves Performance at a Complex Process Facility

A complex processing facility has implemented process safety stewardship activities to understand the effectiveness of process safety management (PSM) systems and drive behaviors to support strong process safety performance. Stewardship activities include a monthly site Process Safety Stewardship Meeting (PSSM) where the Plant Leadership Team (PLT) monitor and discuss process safety performance based on leading and lagging metrics. Decisions and actions influencing tactical and strategic process safety priorities are documented and tracked to closure using an action tracking tool.

Process Safety Metrics at this facility are bucketed into two groups, 1) Business Unit Process Safety Governance Board (BU PSGB) metrics and 2) Facility Process Safety Stewardship metrics. BU PSGB metrics are governed at a BU Operations Leadership level and consist of a mix of Chevron Corporate and BU specific required metrics. These metrics are based on industry recommended practices API RP 754, providing both leading and lagging performance indicators at an Asset Level. Site process safety stewardship metrics were developed to provide the Plant Leadership Team visibility on the performance of PSM systems by plant area. Stewardship metrics are primarily leading indicators developed in conjunction with a review of recommended metrics from industry guidance and agreement from stakeholders in roles supporting stewardship of process safety metrics.

Each metric is assigned a dedicated metric owner and reporter, and an BU Operations support team facilitates the collation and publishing of monthly PSGB reports, while the facility Process Safety Advisor facilitates the same for the site stewardship metrics. Any process safety metric indicating a deterioration in performance is discussed and actioned by the PLT at the monthly Site PS Stewardship Meeting.

Monthly discussion of process safety metrics has helped identify improvements and deficiencies within process safety management systems at this complex processing facility. This presentation will investigate how metrics reported at this facility has resulted in improved process safety performance.