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Managers of more than 100 oil refineries nationwide recently received a letter from OSHA outlining compliance issues found under the OSHA Refinery National Emphasis Program (NEP). The standard requires operators to develop and incorporate comprehensive, site-specific safety management systems to reduce the risks of fatal or catastrophic incidents. Compliance with the standard requires ongoing diligence, documentation and modifications to work processes in response to a challenging manufacturing environment involving heavy equipment, hazardous materials, high temperatures and high pressure equipment conditions. While safety procedures themselves are often well-developed, incorporating them into workflow processes, adjusting them as conditions change and documenting their compliance is often more difficult. As the 2005 BP Texas City incident demonstrated, without the use of a comprehensive integrated data management system, capable of providing a holistic, real-time snapshot of a plants' operating environment, important safety issues can be masked, resulting in catastrophic consequences. "None of us are sitting ducks for the next major failure . . . action is required on our part though . . . you can enlist asset performance management (APM) to expose the next accident waiting to happen, and thus prevent its very occurrence." Ken Bloch, Flint Hills Resources Don't Let a Bad Economy Spoil Useful Reliability Habits March 2009 APM Advisor Click here to read more. Overall safety within the refining industry has improved. According to the American Petroleum Institute, refinery injury rates have decreased 16 percent since 1998 and the industry has a lower injury rate than the broader manufacturing sector in worker safety. But, as the 2007 Baker Report pointed out, ensuring worker safety requires ongoing modifications to work processes in concert with changes in the work environment. If companies plan on staying in business, they will have to learn how to optimally balance risk and reward to ensure the safety of their workers and the long-term profitability of their companies. Click here to download Petroleum Technology Quarterly (PTQ), Q3 2009 article, Improving asset performance and process safety - How to achieve effective risk management and excellence in plant reliability and safety through asset performance management.
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