Process safety audit results

Review a process safety audit report. Summarize the procedures used and the resulting recommendations. Find out how the results were actually implemented. 

The next process step evaluates the process safety management systems to determine if they are adequate to achieve the desired results, and if they are used as intended. This evaluation is highly subjective on the auditors part. This step sets the stage for the rest of the audit, guiding the auditor s information gathering and focusing attention on critical areas. 

The general purpose of an audit may be to determine if the toller has management systems and documented procedures in place to ensure process safety, environmental responsibility, product quality and traceability of materials. The need to audit could be to evaluate compliance with regulations or accordance with client requirements related to specific performance elements. A subjective rating system for ranking management systems audit results is often used. An example of one that might be appropriate is shown below ... 

This safety audit is used for identifying inputs and material flows, processes and intermediates, and final products - but with special attention paid to human-material/process/equipment interactions that could result in (a) sudden and accidental releases/spills, (b) mechanical failure-based injuries, and (c) physical injuries - cuts, abrasions, and so on, as well as ergonomic hazards. Additional sources of adverse effects/safety problem areas are records/ knowledge of in-plant accidents/near misses, equipment failures, customer complaints, inadequate secondary prevention/safety procedures and equipment (including components that can be rendered non-operable upon unanticipated events), and inadequacies in suppliers of material and equipment or maintenance services. 

As discussed in Chapter 6, dashboards will increasingly be used to communicate process safety metrics and performance to local line management. Such dashboards may reflect current, summary, or cumulative data (such as the number of days without a leak), current conditions (such as the fill level of a tank), or the results of the most current inspection or audit. An organization s process safety metrics can evolve in a hierarchical way so that individual indicators can be rolled up from the process level to the site level and eventually even the organizational level. Dashboards can be expected to evolve similarly to report such rolled up information to upper management. 

Safety audit reports are written document which the auditors compile in accordance with relevant laws and regulations in order to realize the implementation of a safety audit of the audited entity on the basis of production safety audit opinion. Safety audit report is the direct results of audit work. Safety auditors should work in accordance with the content, scope and requirements of safety audit. And the auditors should also process work papers by sorting and analysis, comprehensive, classification, analysis of audit evidence to identify problems and correct the audit opinion as well as conclusions What s more, those responsible should be asked to sign in safety audit reports. 

An often-heard criticism of safety audits is that incidents resulting in significant injury or damage occurred after the audit was completed and that the contents of the audit report had little or no relation to the causal factors for those incidents. One reason that occurs is that the audit process does not examine the procedures in place to identify those obscure hazards that are the causes of low probability-high consequence incidents. 

Process safety issues and concerns may come as a result of a process hazard analysis or revalidation, an incident investigation, an audit finding or a review of delays in required mechanical integrity tests and inspections. The appropriate priority must be... 

Safety auditing is an exceptionally valuable process, but time-consuming and expensive. Safety professionals should not be surprised if informed managements expect substantial results from the audit process that benefit their operations. Safety and health professionals conducting audits should prepare well for their exit interviews. This means ... 

All management systems must include an audit process. In the words of one plant manager, There is always news about safety, and some of that news is bad. Audits, reviews, and gap analyses are needed to ferret out the bad news. The audit results are used as the basis for the next SMS iteration. 

Risk assessment and safety audit A risk assessment result can be used to predict whether the facility is safe or not. If it is not acceptable then additional control measures must be used to keep the facility safe. A safety audit is a process by which such safety claim is verified for consistency in results. Each case-by-case validation is done. 

A key element of successful health and safety management is the ability of the organisation to learn from its experiences. Arrangements should be made so that proactive data (e.g. from audit results) and reactive data (e.g. from incidents) in one area of an organisation are shared with other areas in the organisation. In this way, areas have the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others and to consider whether they have similar deficiencies in their systems and processes. The availability of electronic mail systems greatly facilitates the rapid sharing of such information. The information format should provide ... 

Audit results are not fed back into the safety accreditation and safety risk management process. 

Based on these results, Du Pont refined its approach to safety into its present Safety Training Observation Program (STOP). Du Pont promotes STOP extensively both within and outside the company. STOP involves a process of layered safety audits in which each layer of management conducts a regular safety audit, typically every week. A manager enters an area and finds its superintendent then they conduct a safety audit of that area. On a different week, the superintendent chooses an area supervisor and they conduct a safety audit. Further, all management personnel conduct a formal audit each week in one of the work areas for which they are responsible while also conducting informal observations of both safety practices and safe work conditions at all times. 

Audits must result in immediate corrective action when unsafe acts are observed. Such actions will show employees the seriousness of working safely and help to promote the safety audit process. Prompt follow-up is mandatory to demonstrate the quality of the process and the company s commitment to safety. 

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