Process Safety Performance Indicators

The Secret to Measuring Process Safety Performance Combine Process Incident Data with Leading Indicators, Steve Arendt... 

F. Henselwood, Use of Pareto Shape Parameter as a Leading Indicator of Process Safety Performance, Process Safety Progress, February 26. 2009 (reprinted with permission of John Wiley Sons, Inc.)... 

Health and Safety Executive (HSE), HSG254 Developing Process Safety Performance Indicators, a Step-by-Step Guide, Sudbury, Suffolk, UK, 2006 Hopkins, A., Thinking About Process Safety Indicators, Safety Science, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2009... 

Failure to follow up on this information as described in the last two examples could be a contributing factor to a future incident. It may also be an indication of the organization s lack of commitment to improving process safety performance. 

The process safety professional will have primary interest in the data that indicates process safety system performance. This audience includes both process safety professionals at a given site as well as those who have multiple-site or corporate responsibilities. Process safety professionals often document and report selected metrics, but much of the raw data is generated by others, such as operations and maintenance personnel. It is important for the process safety professional to reach agreement with those generating the data on how that data is transmitted to him or her. Issues to resolve in developing a data exchange plan include, but are not limited to ... 

Facility managers use a variety of metrics to monitor operating, maintenance, and process safety performance at their site. These metrics often include a consolidated or aggregated view of metrics as well as some selected detailed data of interest. These reports can indicate the process safety system performance across the site and provide a performance comparison for individual operating units. This allows the site manager to compare performance among the site operating units and use this information to focus performance improvement efforts. Metrics reports often include but are not limited to items such as ... 

Process safety—and the metrics to identify and track it—can be incorporated into a company s overall sustainability program. Adoption of improved process safety leading and lagging indicators that document improving process safety performance will be important in maintaining the organization s license to operate broadly as well as in a specific location. 

The Hull site produces organic acids and derivatives. As part of an initiative launched by the UK Health Safety Executive the site developed a number of Process Safety Performance Indicators (PSPl) in accordance with the Health Safety Executives guidance document HSG 254, which describes a process for the development of PSPI at an individual plant level. This document describes how that activity was undertaken and the subsequent learning s from the process together with the planned wider rollout. 

Indicators should drive process safety performance improvement and learning. 

RP 754 suggests that process safety performance can be measured through the use of four tiers of indicators. These tiers represent a transition from leading to lagging indicators. Tier 1 is the most lagging. Tier 4 is the most leading. They are shown in Figure 3.4. 

API (American Petroleum Institute) RP 754, 2010. Process Safety Performance Indicators for the Refining and Petrochemical Industries. 

During the OCM RA, the RA team should develop a list of process safety measures to monitor during and after the transition to assure effective process safety performance is maintained. The measures should be relevant to the change being made and readily indicate effective performance or issues. Ideally, there should be some baseline data from before the change for comparison. Process safety measures might include ... 

Clearly, process safety performance is important to both risk avoidance and financial performance. Make process safety a key part of due diligence. The due-diligence team needs a process safety representative to be sure the right information is requested and once the information is received that it is properly evaluated. Oftentimes the evaluation centers around performance and liabilities incidents, inspections, lawsuits, fines, etc. These are important lagging indicators. The leading organizational indicators are also important. Some of these are ... 

The quality of indicators or performance data has been an issue at stake. According to Fleming (2010), good indicators are accurate (with direct relationship to system status, and difficult to manipulate), productive (related to future system states and performance) and current (giving real-time information). Skogdalen et al. (2010, 121-122) refer to the work of the American Petroleum Institute (API) about developing Process Safety Performance Indicators for the Refining and Petrochemical Industries, and finds that the success of indicators is related to the extent to which they are ... 

Zwetsloot, G.I.J.M. 2009. Prospects and limitations of process safety performance indicators. Safety Science, 47, 495-7. 

Examples of leading indicators include measures of the quality of an audit program, including schedule adherence, the number of repeat injuries, and analysis of process hazard reviews. As with trailing indicators, there must be some type of cause and effect relationship established between leading indicators and safety performance. 

The insurance loss experience for an organization is closely related to its safety performance. An understanding of how insurance premiums are calculated and the type of impact accidents can have upon premiums can provide the safety manager with an additional method for measuring safety performance. Along with measures of lost workdays and recordable accidents, insurance industry measures should also be part of the safety performance measurement and improvement process. Examples of quantifiable insurance markers that are indicative of safety performance are loss ratios, experience modification rates, and expense ratios. These insurance industry measures are yet another type of performance measure available to the safety professional. 

The Baker Panel reported their findings nnder three areas of emphasis The first focus area was Corporate Safety Culture. In the years since this Panel s report Safely Cnlture is being infused into maity organizations via the API RP 754 Process Safety Performance Indicators for Refining and Petrochemical Industries...and other w s. 

Major process safety incidents in a chemical manufacturing are infrequent but when they do occur, the consequences can be severe. Corporate performance goals are often measured in such a way that a single plant could operate for many years without a major process accident and still be operating below the required performance standard. Process safety near-misses reporting is intended to be a more sensitive indicator of actual process safety performance. 

The purpose of the use of such indicators is to effectively drive process safety performance (hence process safety culture) to a better place. This chapter cannot do justice to such an important measurement tool and it is hoped that interested individuals will review API-754 for increased imderstanding. 

Process safety performance indicators for refining and petrochemical industries -downstream segment. API RP 754, April 2010. 

The AFPM and API modified their annnal process safety data reporting programs to align with the new ANSl/APl Standard - RP 754 Process Safety Performance Indicators for the refining and petrochemical industries. They assist in the uniform... 

---