Successful process safety management takes planning, teamwork

The process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals is one of the most far-reaching regulations OSHA has ever issued. The rule profoundly affects the chemical and petrochemical processing industries, as well as such diverse enterprises as food, metal and paper processing, and electronics. Because of the variety of industries affected, the process safety regulations are performance-based, rather than specification-based. This approach provides regulated facilities flexibility in developing and maintaining required management systems to control process hazards. During the last year, many companies have struggled to implement comprehensive process safety management systems. Managers responsible for implementing the new regulations share many concerns about what process safety management systems are, how they should be established and why they are needed. Process safety management is a comprehensive approach to controlling a process so that its hazards can be identified, understood and controlled. It is a proactive, rather than reactive, system that strives to eliminate injuries and incidents by relying on an ongoing system of checks and balances.