Trade associations, process safety

Enhancement of Process Safety Knowledge—The level of performance in this area can be based on analysis of involvement in internal and external research, including CCPS programs and professional and trade association programs (both domestic and international), improved prredictive systems, such as toxicological data and trend information on maintenance failures, and a process safety reference library. 

Companies with strong chemical reactivity hazard management programs should strive to benefit from the latest advances in process safety technology, and keep abreast of technological advances through active participation in professional and trade associations. 

Professional and trade associations such as the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), and the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD) provide voluntary chemical process safety guidance to their members. 

As previously stated, the American Chemistry Council also recognizes this concept as an integral part of the code of Responsible Care , Process Safety Code of Management Practices, Companies should openly share nonproprietary results from internal process safety incident investigations and related research through the auspices of trade and professional associations, and other networking opportunities. Other organizations should strive to benefit from the lessons learned by others and keep abreast of latest developments and safety alerts. 

Apart from competing for markets, developing country producers and exporters face many challenges, including that of quality issues. Spice exports are subject to strict quality standards for food safety set by the American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) and the European Spice Association (ESA). Demand is growing for high quality and processed spices. This trend for value-added products offers new business opportunities in the spice trade. 

This interest led to the CCPS Technical Steering Committee authorizing the creation of a project committee to develop a book of guidelines for the development and use of leading and lagging process safety metrics. To achieve broader industry acceptance, CCPS invited representatives from many chemical and petroleum companies, trade associations, labor groups, regulators, and academics involved in the field of process safety, as well as other key stakeholders or subject mater experts to participate in this committee s activities. 

Such success stories may come from within the organization or from external sources including other companies and even other industries. Professional and trade associations, safety organizations, and some customers or suppliers as well as other business publications and sources can be sources for such information. Many of the same organizations hold meetings that discuss lessons learned (see Section 9.2.2). An organization may want to engage the corporate communications and/or public affairs functions to look for opportunities to publicize the company s successes within and outside the firm as well as look for examples outside of process safety successes. 

The chemical industry s major trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), has been implementing a program called Responsible Care for over 15 years. This program is the industry s comprehensive initiative to address environmental, health, and safety (EHS), security, outreach, process safety and... 

Because there are some minor differences from the OSHA rule, the components of those elements are worthy of further explanation. For example, under human Factors are the following components operator-process/ equipment interface, administrative control versus hardware, and human error assessment. Likewise, under enhancement of process safety knowledge are quality control programs and process safety, professional and trade association programs, the Center for Chemical Ih-ocess Safety (US.) program. 

Safety professionals can draw upon voluntary standards and national consensus standards to develop safety performance programs, implement continuous improvement programs related to safety, and develop measures of safety performance. National consensus standards are developed through a process of obtaining input from industry representatives on the development of the standard. This representation can include manufacturers, trade associations, professional organizations, as well as other standards development bodies in the United States, in other countries, or from international coalitions such as the European Community. 

Process safety resources via consultants, professional associations and trade associations via the web... 

Information about safety provided by trade associations or professional safety organizations Results of prior incidents and investigations Evaluating new equipment, materials, and processes for hazards before they are introduced into the workplace Assessing the severity of identified hazards and ranking those that cannot be corrected immediately according to their severity [2]... 

Several initiatives have been launched by trade associations to address the issues of delivering high performance in process safety management, aligning with the PSLG Principles of Process Safety Leadership. 

The Process Safety Forum (PSF) has been set up to provide a platform whereby initiatives, best practice, lessons from Incidents and process safety strategy can be distilled and shared across sectors to Influence our stakeholders (including the Regulator) and to drive the process safety management performance agenda. The Forum may, from time to time, make recommendations to industry via the trade associations on directions of travel that would likely benefit all sectors. 

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