Plant design administrative control

Operation includes nonual start-up, normal and emergency shutdown, and most activities performed by die production team. Whilst inlierently safe plant design limits inventories of hazardous substances, inherently safe operation ensures die number of individuals at risk are minimized. Access to die plant for non-essendal operational people such as maintenance engineers, post staff, administrators, quality control samplers, warehouse staff delivering raw material or plant items or collecting finished product, members of security, visitors etc., must be controlled. 

Humans require time to react to process alarms and control requirements. Reaction time must always be considered early in the plant design. It is inherently safer to decide early in process design what administrative controls the operator will be assigned to activate for safety control. Requiring periodic operator interface to the process system relieves boredom and heightens interest in knowing the current condition of the process. See Sections 6.4 and 6.5. 

This paper will focus upon Germany s - and to a lesser extent, Austria s -wartime experience. The story is a familiar one of military unreadiness and belated administrative leadership, coupled with a less familiar history of industrial flexibility in plant design and apparatus, a capacity to survive losses of raw materials and intermediates, and an ability to improvise and innovate in a domain of chemicals needed for explosives production. The war was also to expose stark contrasts between Germany s privately-owned research-intensive dyestuffs industry, and the less sophisticated Austrian chemical industry, in which state-owned or controlled factories played a dominant but less efficient role. 

The design of the plant should be tolerant of human error. To the extent practicable, any inappropriate human actions should be rendered ineffective. For this purpose, the priority between operator action and safety system actuation should be carefully chosen. On the one hand, the operator should not be allowed to override reactor protection system actuation as long as the initiation aiteria for actuation apply. On the other hand, there are simations where operator interventions into the protection system are necessary. Examples are manual bypasses for testing purposes or for adoption of acmation criteria for modifications to the operational state. Furthermore, the operator should have an ultimate possibility, under strict administrative control, to intervene in the protection system for the purposes of managing beyond design basis accidents in the event of major failures within the reactor protection system. 

Heck, W. W., J. A. Dunning, and H. Johnson. Design of a Simple Plant Exposure Chamber. National Air Pollution Control Administration Publ. APTD 68-6. Cincinnati U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1968. 24 pp. 

A preliminary determination of the plant layout enables consideration of pipe runs and pressure drops, access for maintenance and repair and in the event of accidents and spills, and location of the control room and administrative offices. The preliminary plant layout can also help to identify undesirable and unforeseen problems with the preferred site, and may necessitate a revision of the site selection (Section 5.1). The proposed plant layout must be considered early in the design work, and in sufficient detail, to ensure economical construction and efficient operation of the completed plant. The plant layout adopted also affects the safe operation of the plant, and acceptance of the plant (and possibly any subsequent modifications or extensions) by the community. 

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