(119a) Frontline Worker Empowerment – the Biggest Key to Process Safety Implementation

Frontline staff, such as plant operators, operations specialist, and maintenance craft-persons, should and can take the lead on implementing and improving process safety. For this to happen, site Leadership must see the value in this approach and must support this delegation of responsibility and authority over the long term. This paper covers:

• The business case for empowering frontline staff
• The key activities that frontline workers should control:
  1. Writing and owning highly accurate procedures for operations and maintenance tasks
  2. Controlling verbal communication errors
  3. Spotting human-machine interface issues
  4. Leading investigations and root cause analyses of near misses and low complexity accidents (and reporting very high numbers of near misses)
  5. Leading mini-PHAs of small MOCs
• The efforts required to build the necessary competencies in frontline staff for the 5 activities listed above.