Our Process Safety Journey Continues: Operational Discipline Today

Abstract

In the late 1980s, DuPont defined Operational Discipline (OD) as the deeply rooted dedication and commitment by each member of an organization to carry out each task, the right way, each time. Many other companies have similar “operational discipline” definitions, and this emphasis has not changed. Furthermore, the dedication and commitment to OD has grown stronger. Operational discipline continues to reflect the strength of an organization's safety culture in making process safety programs effective and in providing tangible results for preventing injuries and incidents through effective process safety systems. What has changed is how we better apply Operational Discipline as one of the three essential process safety foundations. When combined with both a strong safety culture and leadership and robust process safety systems, the company's strong Operational Discipline foundation helps improve process safety performance. This article describes how collaborative efforts have helped us to better evaluate Operational Discipline in context of the Risk Based Process Safety's element Conduct of Operations, briefly presents how OD programs can be implemented using an example from the Dow Chemical Company, and provides some practical guidance and approaches that a company can use on their process safety journey to improve their OD program. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 37: 478–492, 2018