Process Safety – Bluefield Process Safety
Piling On: One More Safeguard?
PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management
“Some safety professionals, in the name of ‘zero-injuries’, will heap regulation after regulation on a job until the organization rebels and simply refuses to comply.” — Phil La Duke There was a time when getting ready for winter meant making sure you had enough firewood to heat your cabin until spring. If you didn’t, your [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-12-02T15:08:52+00:00December 2nd, 2021|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|0 Comments
E-Stops: The “Get Fired Button”
Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety
“Panic is a natural response to danger, but it’s one that severely compounds the risk.” — David Ignatius At 2:30 am, on Saturday, October 2, 2021, a split in the San Pedro Bay Pipeline began discharging oil into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Low pressure alarms in the control room indicated that there [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-11-18T14:52:54+00:00November 18th, 2021|Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|0 Comments
Batch Processes: Consider a Procedural HazOp
Chemicals, PHA, Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management
“We know we need civilization and laws and procedures, but isn’t it frustrating? Wouldn’t it be great if we could just do what we needed to do?” — Lee Child When someone thinks about a Process Hazard Analysis, a PHA, they usually think about a Hazard and Operability Review, a HazOp. And when they think [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-09-30T17:01:53+00:00September 30th, 2021|Chemicals, PHA, Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|0 Comments
Process Safety and Ethics
“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.” — Bill Moyers One definition of ethics is “the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior.” Which means that engineering ethics would be “the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior while performing engineering.” Most of [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-09-02T14:55:12+00:00September 2nd, 2021|Process Safety, Process Safety Management|0 Comments
Process Safety and Mental Health
“Because most suicides do not happen at work, many employers do not consider depression or suicide an industry problem or occupational hazard.” — Stu Kemppairnen When we were younger, my wife really enjoyed napping in the afternoon. I didn’t get it. There was so much to do, how could anyone take prime “getting things done” [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-08-12T17:12:24+00:00August 12th, 2021|Process Safety, Workplace Safety|0 Comments
Steam or Hot Oil: Which Is Safer?
“I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe… They [the Americans] are great boiler makers.” — Jules Verne I was recently asked about using hot oil instead of steam to heat process [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-07-22T15:20:05+00:00July 22nd, 2021|Chemicals, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|0 Comments
Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde.” — Dolly Parton See someone in glasses? They’re smart, right? See someone, especially a woman, with blonde hair? They’re dumb, right? Blonde and wears glasses? Now there’s a conundrum. These are ridiculous assumptions, [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-07-15T13:40:46+00:00July 15th, 2021|Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|0 Comments
SIS and the Bathtub Curve
“When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I’m not young anymore, so now I just sit in the bath.” — Aki Kaurismaki “We’re installing a safety instrumented system in our existing process. Do we have to pull out all the existing instruments and replace them [...]
By Mike Schmidt|2021-07-01T14:57:47+00:00July 1st, 2021|Process Safety, Process Safety Management|0 Comments