Safety performance organization

Monitor and assess safety performance. Organizations should continually monitor, assess, and learn from their own performance with regard to safety. Incident and accident data should be collected and analyzed accordingly, and appropriate lessons should be drawn from such endeavors. 

PSM improves overaii safety performance by organizing safety-reiated activities in a consistent manner that promotes continuous improvement. 

PSM improves overall safety performance by organizing safety-related activities in a corrsistent matmer that assures and promotes continuous improvement. PSM improves efficiency and reliability, reducing downtime, rework, and waste. 

By organizing and systematizing our safety activities, we can improve our overall safety performance, and, in the process ... 

The first sub-Section deals with the history of indicating safety, how the scope of research evolved, and how research into safety provides new insights and continuous improvement in indicating the safety performance of an organization. The last sub-Section discusses the influence of the changing environment on the way safety is indicated nowadays. 

Different metrics may be used to describe past performance, predict future performance, and encourage behavioral change. They are a means to evaluate the overall system performance and to develop a path toward superior process safety performance. This is accomplished by identifying where the current performance falls within a spectrum of excellent-to-poor performance. Such information will allow executives and site management to develop plans to address the specific improvement opportunities that could lead to measurable improvement in process safety. Good process safety metrics reinforce a process safety culture that promotes the belief that process safety incidents are preventable, that improvement is continuous, and that policies and procedures are necessary and will be followed. Continuous improvement is necessary and any improvement program will be based on measurable elements. Therefore, to continuously improve performance, organizations must develop and implement effective process safety metrics. 

Organization for Economic Coordination and Development (OECD), Guidance on Safety Performance Indicators related to Chemical Accident Prevention, Preparedness and Response for Industry, 2nd Edition, OECD Environment, Health and Safety Publications, Series on Chemical Accidents No. 19, Paris, 2008 Phimister, J. et al., Near-Miss Incident Management in the Chemical Process Industry, Risk Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 3,2003... 

Any organization that wishes to improve and sustain process safety performance must clearly establish its performance goals and objectives. Efforts to sustain and improve process safety performance will require a means to measure and evaluate that performance. Collecting performance information enables an organization to achieve their desired goals and objectives by helping to ... 

As an organization begins an effort to improve process safety performance, it should establish specific goals and objectives that reflect performance outcomes and the desired future state of process safety. Senior leadership needs to lead the development of goals and objectives to signal full support and demonstrate active engagement. 

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. 

A demonstrated commitment to process safety by an organization s senior leadership is essential. The organization s leaders must set the process safety tone at the top of the organization and establish appropriate expectations regarding process safety performance. Those expectations must reflect an unwavering commitment to process safety and infuse into the organization s work force the mind-set that process accidents are not acceptable. 

People must be held accountable for results. If action items are not completed in a timely basis, there needs to be an analysis of why and a plan for improvement. If standard operating procedures (SOP) checklists are not used rigorously, there needs to be an analysis of why with appropriate consequences (punishment should be a last resort). There should be reasons why objectives are not met and those barriers need to be removed. Individual sites within an organization may establish specific process safety goals, activities, and behavior on individual performance contracts, which are reflected in the annual performance review process that links to merit pay raises, bonuses, advancement opportunities, and the like. Consequences for poor process safety performance must not be limited to supervisors or facility managers but must be a factor in performance appraisals throughout the organization. 

As metrics identify weaknesses and deficiencies, steps must be taken to rectify them. Similarly, as metrics document performance gains, such improvements should be communicated and celebrated, but also need constant attention to maintain and/or further improve that performance. Approaching objectives with a continuous improvement mind-set allows the organization to modify objectives as changes occur and constantly raise the process safety performance bar. 

An organization that measures process safety performance will want to know how well its performance compares to that of industry peers. As individual companies improve their process safety performance, the performance of the industry as a whole will also improve. One way of improving individual performance is to compare it with similar performances of others. 

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