Process Safety Management – what’s it all about?

Phil Black - PII Editor 09/02/2011

104 4 minutes read

Listen to this article

Process Safety Management (PSM) is one of the HSE’s foremost ‘hot topics’ for high hazard sites. Guidelines, such as the PSLG Guidance document, exist to assist companies in which factors they should be addressing, but in general industry’s approach to PSM is very disjointed.

In an attempt to remedy this, leading risk management and PSM specialist, HFL Risk Services, together with the Chemical Industries Association and National Skills Academy for Process Industries, has just launched the first ever PSM benchmarking programme. This has brought together representatives from different types of chemical and processing companies, with the aim of identifying and addressing process safety issues throughout industry as a whole.

Dr Julian Hought, Managing Director of HFL Risk Services, believes that the results of the benchmarking exercise will find commonality and help sites to strike a practical balance between aspirations, standards and reality. Here he answers the definitive question of what PSM really is, why it is so important and why companies benefit from shared experience.
What exactly is PSM?

In a nutshell Process Safety Management is making the reality of plant operations and maintenance the same as the design intent all of the time. It is about getting it right first time and ensuring that it is always right.

PSM requires an organisation to consistently perform in the following areas:

•    Defining acceptable operating envelopes for all critical components of the process
•    Maintaining the process conditions within these envelopes
•    Understanding the impact of excursions
•    Maintaining and testing equipment and preventative and protective devices
•    Rigorous compliance to procedures
•    Professional management of change processes

This means taking a holistic view of the entire operation to identify areas of potential risk and putting systems in place to address this in a manner that reduces the potential for failure to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).
To do this you need to ensure that the integrity of a number of layers of protection is maintained. The greater the number of layers of protection between the cause and effect, the less chance there is of the event occurring. A good analogy is to liken the possibility of an incident occurring to a Swiss cheese. It has numerous holes throughout, but unless all the holes are lined up, there is no clear path for the incident to occur.

The causes of accidents are many and varied. It could be because changes have been made which mean that plant and equipment are not now being used as per the original design intent.
Sometimes it is corroded pipe work, faulty valves, or the failure of gauges on the plant itself. Other times it might be new components fitted which are not exactly as per the previous specification. It might even be a chemical reaction which occurs because a tank is damaged and its contents have become exposed to water. However it is important to remember that it is not just plant degradation that can cause major accidents. A host of other concerns must be addressed, including human factors in design, operation and maintenance. In all cases, the design intent needs to be maintained through effective management of change to ensure that the risk profile is not unintentionally adversely affected.
Effective PSM auditing and assessments look at what HFL Risk Services refer to as the four P’s of Process Safety Management, namely Process, Plant, Procedures and People and their relationships to one another.

‘Process’ questions the basis of safety; ‘Plant’ examines the systems in place for managing asset integrity through the lifecycle; ‘Procedures’ looks at the design and implementation of procedural systems; ‘People’ considers workforce involvement, training and competence across the key functional groups.

At the most basic level, those involved in managing risks should be asking themselves the following questions: What could go wrong and what will be the impact?; Are there sufficient controls in place to prevent a major accident?; What does each control measure deliver (i.e. how effective is it)?; How can we demonstrate that the management systems are of sufficient integrity and robustness?

Why is PSM so important?

Preventative actions have an ongoing impact on system performance. The efficacy of measures may have been determined during the design and build stages (the ‘intent’) but the ongoing maintenance and operation of these measures (to ensure their effectiveness) need also to be of sufficient integrity (the ‘reality’) at all times.

PSM is about acting rather than reacting. It is about focusing on the hazards and risks that have the biggest impact. Quality rather than quantity is the key here. Proactive monitoring of every single aspect of a control system is not necessary. Instead you should identify those activities and operations which must be undertaken correctly on each and every occasion, i.e. those that are critical, ensuring that what is critical is monitored to detect early signs of failure. In addition you should identify which activities are undertaken most frequently and which aspects of the system are liable to deterioration over time. This information will allow indicators to be developed to meet your own particular business needs and to monitor the efficacy of the controls you have put in place.

A problem shared…..

System design and implementation are just the first steps on the PSM journey. The greater effort is required in system maintenance and assurance. I mentioned that PSM is one of the HSE’s current hot topics and the indication is that the regulator will increasingly ask how companies demonstrate that PSM is under control and improving. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for the processing industry, critical control points within PSM need to be proportionate to risk. However by sharing information and experience and acting on what we have learned we can go a long way towards achieving this. As Ian Travers of the HSE commented “Society judges industry on the basis of the worst performer within the sector, not the best.”

The PSM Benchmarking programme actively encourages discussion and shared experience. HFL Risk Services is currently undertaking audits of all participants, using its unique INSIGHT Lifecycle tool which addresses all aspects of the PSLG and CCPS guidance in a systematic manner. The results of the audits will highlight common themes and enable a plan to be drawn up setting out recommendations and prioritised actions for the diverse participating group as a whole. It will also form the basis of targeted PSM support programmes for the chemical and processing industries as a whole.

HFL Risk Services Ltd
Denton, Manchester
Can be contacted on

Tel: 0161 304 5902
E-mail : info@hflrisk.com
Web: www.hflrisk.com