Good Practices for Managing Process Safety in Major Hazard Installations and Their Networks

Abstract

The aim of this article is to share good practices for process safety management in major hazard installations and to discuss new challenges in the changing business environment. Today, establishments are networking with an increasing number of stakeholders and service providers. As this networking is constantly on the increase in major hazard installations, and as traditional safety management systems and inspection practices seem to be lacking in the networked business environment, there is a real need to better understand the concept and to describe different networks and their safety challenges. The Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) is responsible for supervising and inspecting process safety issues in Finnish major hazard installations. Tukes has implemented a systematic approach to inspect the functionality of process safety management in major hazard establishments. This article is based on Tukes’s inspection data and the results of two separate studies that were carried out firstly, to identify good practices for managing process safety and secondly, to investigate the effects of networking in major hazard installations. The data were collected from Finnish major hazard establishments, but the examples of good practices and recommendations for improvements can also be applied internationally in enhancing process safety.