Process Safety Management

In Process Safety Management, you'll learn ...

• How a process hazard analysis is used in identifying, evaluating, and controlling the hazards of processes involving highly hazardous chemicals
• The requirements for employee participation and training in process safety management
• The requirements for conducting pre-startup safety reviews, maintaining the mechanical integrity of critical process equipment, and issuing hot work permits
• Procedures for managing changes to processes, conducting incident investigations, and implementing emergency planning and response

Overview

Credit: 3 PDH

Length: 30 pages

Unexpected releases of highly hazardous chemicals have been reported for many years. Major disasters involving chemical releases include the 1984 Bhopal, India incident, which resulted in 3800 deaths; the Phillips disaster of 1989 in Pasadena, TX, which resulted in 23 deaths; and a 2008 sugar refinery explosion near Savannah, GA resulting in 13 deaths. Incidents like these prompted OSHA to develop regulations designed to prevent or minimize the consequences of a catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals from a process. Yet violations of this standard are still the most common OSHA petrochemical industry citation.

This course summarizes OSHA's requirements in Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations (Part 1910.119) for process safety management to prevent or mitigate disasters affecting workers and communities. The key provision of the standard is a process hazard analysis (PHA), which a set of organized and systematic assessments of the potential hazards associated with an industrial process. But it also addresses written operating procedures, employee training and participation, pre-startup safety reviews, evaluation of the mechanical integrity of critical equipment, contractor requirements, written procedures for managing change, and more. This course is relevant to owners, engineers, managers, supervisors, and any other personnel working in industries that deal with highly hazardous chemicals, including petrochemicals, transportation, natural gas liquids, and farm product warehousing.