PT Notes
Enhance Process Safety with Resilience Engineering
PT Notes is a series of topical technical notes on process safety provided periodically by Primatech for your benefit. Please feel free to provide feedback.
Process safety addresses the possibility of major incidents by using inherently safer design approaches, prevention and mitigation safeguards, and emergency response measures. However, major accidents can still occur because overlooked or unpredictable events can and do happen despite an organization’s best efforts. Resilience engineering provides a safety net for processes to protect against such events.
Resilience is the ability to sustain normal functioning in the face of unanticipated disturbances and disruptions. Resilience engineering focuses on understanding and improving the ability of processes to adapt, absorb, respond, and recover from both predictable and unpredictable events that could compromise process safety.
The key elements of resilience engineering are:
Agile Decision Making: Decision makers must be capable of recognizing unexpected and unknown events when they occur and be capable of displaying imagination and ingenuity to address risks in the face of uncertainties without increasing risks elsewhere in the process. Key attributes of agile decision makers are forward thinking, open mindedness, vigilance, insight, adequate process knowledge, appropriate experience, and the ability to think ‘outside-the box’.
Train People for Adaptability: Traditional training focuses on routine and repetition. However, training to foster resilience should include handling unexpected scenarios. Simulations, drills, and other experiential training methods can prepare employees to think on their feet, fostering adaptability.
Flexible Protocols: While structure and consistency are essential in process safety programs, there should be room for adaptability within protocols when people are faced with the unexpected. Flexibility ensures that people can make informed decisions that prioritize process safety without being strictly bound by standard procedures.
Error-tolerant design (ETD): ETD seeks to minimize the potential for errors by people who interact with a process, such as operators and mechanics, and to help ensure the design is forgiving of potential errors. Designers anticipate potential failures and design mechanisms to mitigate their impacts.
Error-tolerant equipment (ETE): ETE enhances resilience by ensuring that processes remain operational and safe even in the face of equipment problems. Such equipment can tolerate errors and continue to function despite anomalies, ensuring that process operation is not interrupted.
Modular Design: Processes should be designed in a modular way so if one module fails, the entire process does not stop functioning. This allows for isolated recovery of modules and reduces overall recovery time.
Redundancy and Diversity: Relying on a single safety system or protocol can be risky. Multiple layers, backup systems, or diverse approaches that serve the same purpose help to ensure that if one system fails or is compromised, another one can take its place, maintaining safety integrity. This includes the implementation of failover systems that can automatically and seamlessly take over in case of a failure, ensuring uninterrupted operation.
Early Warning: Many methods exist to provide timely warning of impending hazardous events, which enables proactive measures to be taken before a disruption escalates. Continuous process monitoring with data processing using statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms supports fault detection and diagnosis. Control signals, and the performance of equipment and people can all be monitored.
Technological Advancements: Real-time monitoring, coupled with historical data, can identify patterns that human oversight might miss and offer insights into potential failures or risks before they manifest themselves. Predictive analytics can be employed to forecast potential vulnerabilities, allowing organizations to adopt a proactive stance ensuring that potential issues are addressed before they escalate.
Recovery from Events: Effective means of recovery from hazardous events are crucial for process resiliency. Emergency response plans are part of existing process safety programs. A Business Continuity Plan should identify essential business functions and describe how they will continue in the face of disruptions. A Disaster Recovery Plan should focus on restoring IT infrastructure and systems after a disruption.
Resilience engineering enhances process safety by providing a proactive approach to address unpredictable events. It recognizes that uncertainties exist in process performance and equips an organization to navigate them effectively. It requires a new mindset and shifting from a reactive to a proactive posture, anticipating disruptions, and being ready to handle them. Its practices must be embedded into the fabric of an organization and its culture. By prioritizing resilience alongside traditional safety measures, organizations can ensure a comprehensive approach to process safety, being prepared not just for the expected, but also the unexpected.
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