2008 Spring Meeting & 4th Global Congress on Process Safety

(47a) Lessons from Safety Culture Evaluations at Process Facilities

Author

Arendt, S. - Presenter, ABS Consulting


Interest sparked by the BP-Baker Panel review caused many companies to undertake evaluations of their safety culture. This paper will compare the results from safety culture evaluations involving six companies and 15+ facilities from several process industries. These results were developed using a performance assurance review approach that mapped process safety performance outcomes to their culture causal factors.

The evaluations used a variety of culture data collection approaches, including surveys, interviews, and work observations. All of the studies involved the use of CCPS's essential features of a good process safety culture as the common diagnostic framework.

The lessons presented will be of use to all companies seeking to build and nurture better process safety cultures at operating facilities.