Lessons from Safety Culture Evaluations at Process Facilities文档.doc

Practical Steps to Improving Process Safety/HSE Culture Steve Arendt, Vice President (speaker) Organizational Performance Assurance ABS Consulting Houston, Texas +1-281-673-2914 sarendt@ Lelio DePaiva SaFreitas IMS Manager, Quality Assurance American Bureau of Shipping Houston, Texas +1-281-877-6576 Lsafreitas@ Rick Curtis. Senior Risk Consultant ABS Consulting Houston, Texas +1-281-673-2780 RCurtis@ Ron Henderson Manager, EHS Training and Management Systems ABS Consulting Houston, Texas +1-281-673-2816 RHenderson@ 1. Introduction Some companies wonder why they keep experiencing the same process safety problems. Others wonder why they seem to have plateaued in process safety performance. Culture has also been recognized as a contributor to major accidents; these have been termed organizational accidents. Understanding and improving Culture is KEY. Culture is the individual and organizational “DNA” that represents our tendency to want to do (1) the right thing in (2) the right way at (3) the right time, (4) ALL the time – even when if no one is looking. The safety culture that exists in a plant or company is the result of all the actions - and inactions - in institutional/workforce memory.1 Many facilities use management systems to help control risks of hazardous processes. These management systems are operated by people – people whose inherent attitudes about safety can affect the choices they make in operating these systems and, thus, the overall safety performance of the facility. This paper presents lessons learned from companies implementing process safety/HSE culture improvements involving the following steps: education, planning, workforce involvement, and providing remedies for culture weaknesses. 2. Understanding Process Safety/HSE Culture The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has created a framework for understanding, evaluating, and improving culture (Table 1)2,3. Using that framework, we have created a unique analysis process for de