(90a) The Day Process Safety Hit Home: The Importance of Pre-Startup Safety Reviews

A loud bang shot through the plant and sent us all running away from the terrible noise. It was the final day of a week-long shutdown. Over the course of the week, the manufacturing team had implemented many improvements, which resulted in many Pre-Start Up Safety Reviews (PSSRs). As it often happens with shutdowns, many of the PSSRs occurred at the end of long days after the project has been installed. This also led to multiple PSSRs occurring at one time and in one process area. The team had completed a Management of Change (MOC) months prior to the project installation. This involved a risk assessment, including a What-If analysis, to ensure we had the right design and safeguards for the project. We had identified our worst-case scenarios and the safeguards we needed to avoid it from occurring. Once the loud bang rang out, the team realized that we failed to ensure all the safeguards were in place prior to starting the PSSR tests. As we were running away from the noise, the author looked down and saw the gash from where the gasket hit.

This event led the author to present day as a process safety professional. There has always been a deep passion for process safety, but this event gave it a whole new perspective. This presentation will express the importance of all aspects of process safety, but especially MOC, PSSR, and thinking through your actions even when under pressure so hopefully others can avoid the Day PSM Hit Home.