Process safety management

Process safety management (PSM) is a practice to manage business operations critical to process safety. It can be implemented using the established OSHA scheme^[1] or others made available by the EPA,^[2] AIChE's Center for Chemical Process Safety,^[3] or the Energy Institute.^[4]

PSM schemes are organized in 'elements'. Different schemes are based on different lists of elements. This is a typical list of elements that may be reconciled with most established PSM schemes:

• Commit to process safety
  • Process safety culture
  • Compliance with standards
  • Process safety competency
  • Workforce involvement
  • Stakeholder outreach
• Understand hazards and risks
  • Process knowledge and documentation management
  • Hazard identification and risk analysis
• Manage risk
  • Operating procedures
  • Safe work practices (e.g. a permit-to-work system)
  • Asset integrity management
  • Contractor management
  • Training and performance assurance
  • Management of change
  • Operational readiness
  • Conduct of operations
  • Emergency management
• Learn from experience
  • Incident investigation
  • Process safety metrics and performance measurement
  • Auditing
  • Management review and continuous improvement

References

1. "Code of Federal Regulations, Title 29, Subtitle B, Chapter XVII, Part 1910, Subpart H § 1910.119". eCFR. 2023-06-15. Retrieved 2023-06-20.
2. EPA (2013-10-29). "Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule Overview". www.epa.gov. Archived from the original on 2023-06-18. Retrieved 2023-06-22.
3. CCPS (2007). Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-16569-0.
4. Energy Institute (2010). High Level Framework for Process Safety Management (1st ed.). London: Energy Institute. ISBN 978-0-85293-584-2.

Further reading

Nwankwo, Chizaram D.; Theophilus, Stephen C.; Arewa, Andrew A. (May 18, 2020). "A Comparative Analysis of Process Safety Management (PSM) Systems in the Process Industry" (PDF). Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries. 66. doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2020.104171. S2CID 219495043.