Delivering Innovative Approaches to University Education Through Industry Experience

Background and Context

It seems obvious but worth pointing out that, in the late 1980’s the world was very different.  I, for example, was a student at the University of Leeds, studying Chemical Engineering and Flixborough was not only within most peoples’ living memory, but also something that I remember being reported on the News. 

It is not, now, anything that a majority of the public including Chemical Engineering students have heard of, let alone remember.  During my years delivering Process Safety training across industries and to hundreds of professionals, I have found that even relatively recent process safety incidents like the explosion at the Buncefield fuel depot, slip from the collective memory.  If the world in which you are living is changing rapidly, this is a problem.

It is a problem because, without the impetus of a recent incident to continually prompt and shape corporate direction and investment, the emphasis on process safety drops down the list of priorities. 

In the relative absence of prompts to action, it must be the job of process safety professionals to act as the industry’s long-term memory.

In the aftermath of Buncefield, the Process Safety Leadership Group, with representatives from the Regulatory bodies, the Unions and Industry, was formed.  Process Safety Training was identified strongly as the key means by which the corporate memory was to be maintained as well as introducing the tools, techniques and language associated with process safety management. 

Courses were developed and rolled out covering operators, engineers and senior leaders.  Professional qualifications were developed and became available to people already working in process safety who were keen to show credibility and demonstrate their commitment. 

Given the high level of enthusiasm for learning about Process Safety from industry, the question arose on why we shouldn’t ‘front-load’ people entering work with at least the background and language of process safety. 

The benefits lay, not in providing industry with people who can immediately begin work by conducting a Quantified Risk Assessment (QRA), but in people who could at least understand why such things as QRA are necessary.  People who can understand the difference between Hazard and Risk, people who might not remember Buncefield, but who do know how and why it happened. 

Since Chemical Engineers are disproportionately positioned to determine whether major incidents at hazardous installations ever happen, it makes good business sense for them to be informed and knowledgeable about how to manage hazard and risk.

Academic Perspective

While Process Safety is, indeed, a component of many universities’ Chemical Engineering courses, few academics in departments have significant experience in professional safety practice.  There is also a question not only about the extent and content of safety material to teach and assess, but where in the programme to introduce it. 

The establishment of a safety culture and appropriate practices suggests as early as possible, most obviously within early year laboratory practical classes.  For the formal teaching of safety issues, an argument can be made for introducing these topics, ways of thinking and codes of practice just as early. 

Thus, for example, if students are to spend their 3rd year in industry, it is desirable for them to have received the safety component of their education before they start their industrial placement. 

However, the maturity of thinking and the types of assessment, imply that students will be more receptive, and learn more effectively, if the complex topics that safety requires, are introduced later in the programme. 

Similarly, process safety is intimately linked with process control, a challenging topic that tends to be taught in later years, implying that effective safety teaching that relies on understanding of control, would also therefore need to be introduced late in the programme.

Huddersfield University felt that the greatest value and effect would be obtained when students were actively engaged with their design projects so that the concepts that were introduced could be seen in the context of an actual design. 

It is at this point that specific process safety questions become important, the most relevant and cover all aspects of the design. 

What are the hazards associated with the materials?  What are the conditions of temperature and pressure?  How do these affect the hazards and what should you do about it?  What are the consequences of an incident?

It is with the 3^rd and 4^th year students that the combination of the previous years (2 years or 3 years with industrial placement) experience and the topic’s current relevance that a process safety course is most appropriate.

The University made available 8 hrs of teaching time split into 4 lectures of two hours each.  This was split over a 4 to 6 week period and ran in parallel with teaching on Process Control and Process Design.  In a unique approach, Huddersfield decided to use an industry professional Process Safety Consultant to both provide the content and to deliver the modules.

Course Contents

Four major modules are taught. 

Introduction to Process Safety. 

Here the intent is to provide context.  A distinction is drawn between process safety and occupational safety and why it is necessary to do so.  The concept of a Major Accident is crucial for context and this is where the case-study is useful. 

The quantification of consequences in terms of lives lost, environmental harm, financial losses and economic disruption is helpful in underlining the importance of why the topic is studied and why the understanding, tools and techniques need to be as rigorous as they are. 

The major pieces of legislation and regulations governing both companies and individuals are introduced to demonstrate the concepts of As Low As Reasonable Practicable (ALARP), the duty of care and continual improvement, along with some significant prosecution cases.

Hazard Identification

Some techniques are introduced including, conceptual hazard identification, Hazard Identification (HAZID) and Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP).  Concepts of hazard arising from flammability data, toxicity and eco-toxicity are included.  This includes changing the nature or level of hazards by virtue of the way materials are processed.

Risk Management

Risk Management introduces the idea of frequency and thus the difference between hazard and risk.  Case studies are used to illustrate where Risk Management has either been a cause of major accident, by poor implementation, or failed to effectively prevent, control or mitigate a major accident. 

Concepts of Safety Management Systems, probability-of-failure-on-demand and reliability, land use planning and emergency procedures are introduced.  A significant concept is that of proportionality and the idea that the level of risk assessment and the reliability, number and type of safeguards against a scenario should reflect the hazard and consequence.

Tools and Techniques

A range of hazard identification and risk assessment techniques are introduced with the intention that students understand that there are differing levels of abstraction, applicable at different stages of the plant lifecycle and differing types and levels of hazard.  These are:

• HAZID – Hazard Identification,
  
• HAZOP – Hazard and Operability,
  
• LoPA – Layers of Protection Analysis,
  
• and Fault and Event Trees.

Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) and the modelling that supports it is included so that students are aware that the tools exist and can understand the information that may be extracted from them.

Student and Industrial Benefits

In an engineering course at university, it is rare that lectures and workshops do not contain any mathematics.  The Process Safety Management module is light on maths and is therefore seen by students as somewhat novel. 

Consequently, engagement has been very good, with some students keen to remain behind after the lecture has finished to continue the conversation and many have asked about routes into Process Safety Management as a career.

Students have also expressed their enthusiasm for having material presented by an external professional who deals with the material daily and can therefore bring real-world experience to back up and illustrate the examples being given.

The approach taken by Huddersfield has clear benefits to the student.  With Process Safety Management (PSM) being the focus for industry, the regulator and the public and its relatively low position in the priorities of most universities’ chemical engineering programs, the students have a clear advantage when it comes to job interviews. 

Process Safety Management is a significant driver for industry as well as for the engineers in their day-to-day work and having an introductory background in the subject matter is an attractive characteristic.

For Industry the benefits are just as strong.  A pool of prospective candidates with at least some of the ‘corporate memory’ of past incidents and for whom the language, tools duties and responsibilities of good corporate practice are not as opaque as they otherwise might be.