Contractors, process safety management

Operations and Safety Effectiveness Safety and Health Management Safe Work Practices Process Safety Management Contractor Safety Emergency Response... 

Unless some discipline is imposed, engineering personnel, especially where contractors are involved, will define far more alarms than plant operations require. This situation may be addressed by simply setting the alarm hmits to values such that the alarms never occur. However, changes in alarms and alarm hmits are changes from the perspec tive of the Process Safety Management regulations. It is prudent to impose the necessary discipline to avoid an excessive number of alarms. Potential guidelines are as follows ... 

In the United States, the OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.119 Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals requires that a hazard analysis must be carried out for any process involving certain listed chemicals (see Appendix A of the standard) or involving more than 10,0001b (4535.9 kg) of flammable gas or liquid. Employers must involve employees in the hazard analysis, and it must be made available to employees and updated at least every 5 years. Employees and contractors must be trained in safe work practices associated with the identified process hazards. Eull details of these and other legal requirements as well as descriptions of the information that must be included in the analysis can be found in the standard. The most recent version of this standard and all other OSHA regulations are available at www.osha.gov. 

In designing the Process Safety Management standard (PSM), OSHA looked at overall process safety from a broad system s view and identified 14 key elements that industry should address to minimize catastrophic accidents. The 14 elements cover the things that can cause a process failure and accidents. Some of the major causes of process accidents are a lack of training, lack of information about process equipment, lack of equipment inspections, poor coordination with contractors, and lack of employee participation in process planning and implementation. The program is triggered by above-threshold quantities of any of 136 chemicals. The purpose of the standard is to minimize the consequences of a catastrophic release of a toxic, flammable, reactive, or explosive chemical. The importance of this standard is that it requires safety analysis and names certain analytic techniques to use or their equivalent. 

Department manager Engineering Mechanical integrity Customers (internal) Employees Contractors Co-workers EHS manager Process safety manager Human resource manager Union representative... 

Other companies have included additional elements into their core management system. Examples include behavioral-based safety, communication, contractor safety, and process safety management. You can add any elements to your management that will help you measure your success. 

Contractors are discussed as a stand-alone topic in the OSHA Occupational Health and Safety (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) rule. That rule (with some internal references removed see Table 6.6) and the associated guidance (see Table 6.7) are provided here entitled OSHA Regulation—Contractors and OSHA Guidance—Contractors. 

The three major OSHA standards most frequently cited to employers regarding contractor safety are Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemical (29 CFR 1910.110), Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout) (29 CFR 1910.147), and Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200). These regulations pertain to the hiring of outside contractors and subcontractors to perform repair work, plant modification, equipment maintenance, etc. Many countries around the world have their comparable standards. 

Continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). See CSTR fcontinuous stirred tank reactorl. Contractors, process safety management, 857 Contracts, 840 Control approach, 876... 

Employee involvement requires developing a written plan of action regarding employee participation consulting with employees and their representatives on the conduct and development of process hazard analyses and on the development of other elements of process safety management required under the rule providing to employees and their representatives access to process hazard analyses and to all other information required to be developed under the rule. Includes work site and contractor employees. 

Promulgation of the PSM Rule has heightened the awareness of chemical safety management issues whithin the DOE. This handbook is intended for use by DOE facilities and processes covered by the PSM rule to facilitate contractor implementation of the PrHA element of the PSM Rule. However, contractors whose facilities and processes not covered by the PSM Rule may also use this handbook as a basis for conducting process hazards analyses as part of their good management practices. 

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