Our White Papers

Operating companies covered by OSHA’s PSM standard or EPA’s RMP rule are required to revalidate their PHA every five years. Very frequently, PHA teams encounter frustrating challenges, including: Identification of a hazard introduced by a process change, identification of a hazard similar to a recent incident that was either overlooked in the previous PHA or deemed to have adequate protection, and inadequate documentation from the previous PHA.

The way a company manages a major crisis can literally spell the difference between life and death — both for the immediate victims of the crisis and for the company itself. Over the past two decades, several major crises have had severe environmental, health, and safety consequences, as well as drastic implications for the companies involved.

Risk assessment is an effective means of identifying process safety risks and determining the most cost-effective means to reduce risk. Many organizations recognize the need for risk assessment, but most do not have the tools, experience and resources to assess risk quantitatively.

eLearning and Learning Management Systems (LMS) were taken to new heights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as training shifted online across the globe. This shift altered how industries viewed risk and hazard management and posed new challenges for training and compliance.

Chemical processing facilities need reliable emergency response plans and systems (ERPS) in order to manage technological risks to plant personnel, the surrounding communities, and the environment.

The handling, use, processing and storage of hazardous materials will always present risk. The goal of process safety management is to consistently reduce risk to a level that can be tolerated by all concerned - by facility staff, company management, surrounding communities, the public at large, and industry and governmental agencies.

This paper describes a method for identification of major acute risks in existing process facilities that have potential for serious impacts to on-site and offsite populations, and for prioritization of mitigating measures.

This paper provides concise and structured documentation to be used as a “guideline” when conducting Hazard & Operability (HAZOP) studies. It collects and summarizes key tables, figures, and checklists placed in chronological order according to the sequential phases that define the HAZOP Management System (HMS).

Although most companies that handle hazardous materials have implemented process safety management systems, they are still having accidents.

This manuscript explains the fire phenomena and introduces the different types of industrial fires that should be identified and characterized during the development of a risk-based quantitative assessment; i.e., flash fires, pool fires, jet fires and fireballs.

It’s a new era for safety culture. Gone are the days of perceiving culture as a static, top-down pyramid where training is considered a check-off-the-box to-do that transforms performance into being “safer” after a single dose of learning. Peak safety competence doesn’t happen overnight, like magic; it’s cultivated.

Regarding vessels and tubes containing combustible gases or dusts, it is important to acquire knowledge on the conditions under which a fuel and oxidizer could undergo explosive reactions. These conditions are strongly dependent on the pressure and temperature.

Many companies who are regulated by current Good Manufacturing Practices (or cGMP) are discovering that they are also required to comply with process safety management regulations such as PSM in the U.S. or Seveso or COMAH in Europe. And chemical and petrochemical companies who have been regulated for years under PSM are now starting to produce pharmaceutical products that are regulated under cGMP.

Online learning, commonly referred to as eLearning, is uniquely primed to train and deepen individual and organizational competency more efficiently than traditional training methods. The COVID-19 pandemic created a surge in organizations adopting online learning to substitute for traditional, in-classroom training.

An effective management of change (MOC) process simply prevents accidents. In fact, several process industry incident investigations have identified a weakness in the MOC process as the root cause, including two case histories published in a 2001 safety bulletin issued by the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).