(41n) Process Safety Barriers Verification

Background:

• Asset integrity, maintenance and inspection become important concerning Process Safety as plant ages.
• Process safety requires constant attention. Absence of incidents is not a good indicator that process safety is being managed.
• Aiming to manage Process Safety incidents by having of effective Process Safety barriers in place.

Abstract:

Despite periods of excellent performance, we encountered instances of safety and reliability events. Process safety incidents are caused by multiple events or failures that coincide. Hazards are contained by multiple protective barriers each of which may have weaknesses or “holes.” When these holes align, the hazard is released resulting in undesirable outcome.

To turn this around to achieve “GOAL ZERO” and to better learn from process safety incidents within our own manufacturing sites and within the industry, a Process Safety Barrier verification should be considered and deployed.

The Process Safety Barrier verification is not new, but having it in a dynamic manner, would result in having effective barrier in place and achieving “GOAL ZERO”. To achieve this, it requires multidiscipline staff and activity in place.

In this topic, I am going to share our experince and good parctice on how to enhance process safety and assest integrity to prevent process safety incidents by applying “Process Safety Barrier Verification”

Let us all be Process Safety Barriers, not weak but strong!