Operational excellence hazards

Excellent materials selection, design, and detailed specification for construction of a plant or a piece of equipment may be set forth, but they can be essentially meaningless if they are not followed. Proper inspection is a must - particularly for critical components operating under hazardous conditions. Inspectors should scrutinize critically during fabrication and construction, not Umiting inspection to the final product only. In addition to being capable and well qualified, inspectors should have substantial authority. Inspectional aspects are as important as design and material selection. 

Designs should be based on knowledge of what the human body (and human nature) will do. Include educated operators in design reviews. The HAZOP methodology for process hazard analysis offers an excellent opportunity to identify design and procedural opportunities for inherently safer systems. After all, the OP in HAZOP stands for operability (COPS, 1992). For example, a safe start-up procedure that requires the operator to walk up and down the stairs three times to manipulate valves in the correct sequence can be made inherently safer by locating the valves so that operator has to walk up the stairs only once during the start-up. 

SUMMARY. The safety record associated with the use of APE operated remotely or within operational shields is excellent. Operational shields that are properly designed, fabricated, and tested do provide operators with adequate protection, and ensures their safety during hazardous operations. 

Descriptions of accidents, incidents, and process related events at this and/or other units having similar hazards should be kept on file. This information provides an excellent training tool for both operations and management employees. 

Another interesting application of micro reactors is to use them as calorimeters. They may show excellent performance in terms of sensitivity [9-12]. Moreover, their performance in terms of heat exchange allows study of the kinetics of fast exothermal reactions under isothermal conditions. Such a development was realized by Schneider [13, 14], who studied such a reaction with a power of up to 160 kW kg-1. This type of calorimeter is simple to use and determines the reaction kinetics in a short time, with very small amounts of reaction mass, and without any hazard for the operator. 

Chapters bear titles such as, Preparing for Hazards Evaluation Studies, Hazards Identification Methods and Results, and Selecting Hazard Evaluation Techniques. Supplemental Questions for Hazards Evaluation in Appendix B is excellent. Appendix B contains some of the important questions that are not thought of when performing a HAZOP study. There are 45 pages of probing questions on the process, specific classes of equipment, operation and maintenance, and hazard searching review. List price 120. 

Films. Both structural and nonstructural adhesives are commonly available in film form. Adhesives applied in the form of dry films offer a clean, hazard-free operation with minimum waste and excellent control of film thickness. However, the method is generally limited to parts with flat surfaces or simple curves. Optimum bond strength requires curing under heat and pressure, which may involve considerable equipment and floor space, particularly for large parts. Film material cost is high in comparison to liquids, but waste or material loss is the lowest of any application method. 

Batch or continuous Suspension free radical Styrene monomer Water carrier Stabilizing agent Several initiators Excellent heat control High conversion No devolatilization Good range of products Need prereactor for HIPS Poorer clarity Poor uniformity Round beads are hazard High operating costs Better for low-volume products... 

As part of the support activities for the QRA, the transportation manager works with the current and proposed carriers reviewing accident statistics. Since the delivery of pesticides from the facility is a dedicated activity, it is important to develop representative accident rates, as opposed to using a general trucking accident rate. Both carriers keep excellent records for all their hazardous material transportation operations. The following is determined and provided as input to QRA after a review of these records ... 

A hazards analysis often provides a thorough education in the process itself for the team members. They obtain an excellent overall picture of the process and they see how different aspects of the operation—instrumentation, operating strategy, and equipment performance— all fit together. 

Failure rates of complex equipment can often be greatly reduced through redundant arrangements. Redundancy provides multiple means of warning and shut down systems to ensure personnel and equipment are safe from failures that could result in a hazardous situation. Redundancy is based upon how critical an event is to worker safety or process continuation. Two separate switches or two separate alarms provide redundancy. In addition, there is standby redundancy. In this case, a piece of equipment operates until a failure is indicated, at which time another duplicate piece of equipment is turned on either automatically or manually. An excellent example of redundancy is fire water pumps. There are always at least two or more. A unit does not want to experience a fire, the site has only one pump, and that is the day the pump fails. 

In contrast, the Department of Energy s MORT-based approach provides excellent accident investigation, audit, and appraisal tools oriented to ongoing operations. Despite emphasis on the importance of the upstream process, however, system safety programs based on MORT tend to lack the early, detailed, systematic hazard identification and analysis efforts that are characteristic of MIL-STD-882B programs. 

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