Process Safety Education Research Articles

GenAI in the classroom: Customized GPT roleplay for process safety education

This paper outlines innovative pedagogical approaches in chemical engineering safety education, utilising three key strategies: (1) Integration of the direct experiences of experienced professional engineers to teach expertise-aligned process safety case studies; (2) Shifting from traditional short oral presentations to more comprehensive and dynamic ‘engineering meeting’ formats to drive constructive student learning; and (3) The use of Generative AI to enhance (1) and (2), with cost/time scalability, improved student access and by accommodating greater learning-style diversity. Evaluation of these educational innovations is performed through a mixed-methods approach and reveals positive impacts on student learning and engagement. The paper provides a detailed outline of classroom implementation, with supporting resources, for straightforward integration by other academics.

Imperative of Integrating Process Safety Education in Chemical Engineering Curricula.

The integration of process safety education into chemical engineering programs has become a pressing necessity for chemical engineers worldwide. However, some chemical engineering programs have not yet incorporated process safety into their curricula. The purpose of this Viewpoint is to encourage a discussion on the imperative of mobilizing a global update of chemical engineering education and integrating process safety. This initiative will not only inspire experts in the field to support those seeking this change but also encourage new participants, especially from countries that have not yet embraced this much-needed transformation in chemical engineering education.

Safety education 4.0 – A critical review and a response to the process industry 4.0 need in chemical engineering curriculum

Safety education has found a place in the chemical engineering curriculum. However, its complete impact is yet to be realized. A part of this delay may be attributed to the gap between the concepts traditionally taught in engineering education and the tools required for the practice of engineering in the process industry. This gulf is only exacerbated by the advent of Industry 4.0, which relies heavily on emerging technologies, such as big data, automation, and machine learning. Therefore, a fundamental aspect that educators of process safety need to readdress is the following: “How can safety knowledge and competence among engineering graduates be enhanced for them to have a sustained impact on the safe design and operation of chemical processes during industrial practice?” In this context, the present work investigates the status of safety knowledge development and transfer from education to practice. A detailed analysis of demographic and temporal evaluation of safety education in specific engineering disciplines, and the shortcomings of the current curricula in imparting safety concepts to the students, are also discussed in detail. This perspective attempts to bridge the gap between academic training and the job requirements of process safety engineers through a concept titled ‘Safety Education 4.0’. In the proposed Safety Education 4.0 methodology, academics and industry personnel collaborate in teaching students safety principles through project-based learning (PBL). The compact modular format of PBL makes it flexible to be updatable on-demand process safety education.

Process safety analysis using operational data and Bayesian network

AbstractFault detection and diagnosis (FDD) methods have recently experienced significant advances. These methods provide valuable information from an abnormal situation management perspective. However, traditional FDD methods do not consider system failure analysis, which is required from the process safety perspective. This work seeks to overcome this barrier and presents a methodology to assess process system failure probability based on process operational data and system knowledge. The methodology is built using the principal component analysis (PCA) and a Bayesian network (BN). The PCA is used for FDD, while the BN determines the probability of system failure once a fault is detected. This portion of the network is based on the logical relationship of the data, operational thresholds, and system failure conditions. The proposed methodology is tested and verified on a level‐controlled tank system and the real‐life failure scenario of the 2010 Tesoro heat exchanger explosion. The results suggest that the proposed methodology helps to assess process system failure probability based on process operating conditions. The current work is expected to give a stimulus on digital process safety education.

An analysis of engineering students' risk perception to support process safety learning process

Multidisciplinary teams often undertake engineering projects beyond their original discipline involving different kinds of risks. Risk perception is an inherent and embedded part of the decision-making process, which depends on the personal background and instinctive attitudes or behaviors. Process safety and risk analysis training for engineers, and education for engineering students, provide valuable tools seeking safer workplaces; however, personnel’s risk perception is commonly neglected. This paper analyzes the risk perception and appetite of undergraduate engineering students in Colombia based on a survey strategy and a weighted-approach following a Factor Analysis. The survey considered financial, social, physical, and professional risks, and four main reasons for risk-taking or risk-avoiding actions. The Factor Analysis allows us to classify the students tendency as risk-averse o risk-prone, and propose didactic teaching planning using a modular toolbox for process safety education, based on skills identified for junior engineers in Colombian Oil & Gas Industry. A total of 465 engineering students from 12 Colombian universities completed the survey in 2016. The results suggest that risk perception depends on the location, possible risk training, and accessible information. The obtained factors allow describing the students’ overall risk profiles, which can serve as an input for refining the content and curriculum content of current engineering programs regarding process safety. Improving the training of risk management in the engineering curriculum will benefit upcoming multidisciplinary teams in high-risk industries.

A Critical Perspective on the Impact of Industry 4.0's New Professional Safety Management Skills on Process Safety Education

A Critical Perspective on the Impact of Industry 4.0's New Professional Safety Management Skills on Process Safety Education

Analysis of chemical engineering curriculum to improve process safety competency

Continuous process safety (PS) development is the key to maintaining a good PS system, and its competency plays a substantial role. However, PS incompetency can still be demonstrated in several process-related accidents, particularly major catastrophic incidents. To mitigate this gap, universities’ PS education is analysed. Because PS is an important element of chemical engineering (CE), this study seeks to identify the most prevalent PS subjects taught in the top 300 Quacquarelli Symonds ranking (2019) universities. Findings indicate that PS education remains insufficiently addressed in undergraduate CE curricula over the years. Twelve common topics, i.e., human factors; management of hazards, incidents, and risk; design; fire and explosion; legislation and standards; sustainability; process control; economics; toxicology; and software are identified. Notably, sustainability is acknowledged to be a new common PS topic, depicting its demand for industrial evolution. Ultimately, strengthening the collaboration between universities and industries is required to develop graduates’ PS competency. Abbreviations: ALARP: as low as reasonably practicable; CAD: computer-aided design; CE: chemical engineering; ETA: event tree analysis; FTA: fault tree analysis; FMEA: failure mode and effect analysis; HAZAN: hazard analysis; HAZID: hazard identification; HAZOP: hazard and operability; HSE: health, safety and environment; HYSYS: Hyprotech Systems; LCA: life cycle analysis; LOPA: layer of protection analysis; MS: Microsoft; ORP: occupational risk prevention; PC: personal computer; PHA: process hazard analysis; PS: process safety; PSM: process safety management; QS: Quacquarelli Symonds; SMS: safety management system.

Process safety education: Validating the concepts for a process safety program (article 2/2)

AbstractThis article focusses on the validation of the concepts that deserve integration in, for example, an Advanced Master of Safety Engineering program. The selection of the concepts was described in the previous article “Process safety education: Selecting the concepts for a process safety program.” This historical and theoretical selection process of process safety concepts needs a validation by the industry and review by root cause analysis of recent major incidents and accidents. The finally selected, reviewed, and adjusted list of concepts are the backbone to build on and improve short and 1‐year academic process safety courses and programs as well as industrial process safety trainings. Apart from the validation of the selected concepts, the industry validation also resulted in an extension and clarification of the concepts by experts in the subject matter and the desired competencies and characteristics of a young engineer educated in the process safety concepts.

Process safety education and training in academic institutions in China: A brief introduction

Process safety education and training in academic institutions in China: A brief introduction

Chemical process safety education in China: An overview and the way forward

The chemical process industry (CPI) in China is developing rapidly with installations becoming more complicated and integrated to meet people’s rising demands for chemical-related products. However, the fast-growing CPI has caused catastrophic consequences and bad social influence due to accidents occurred in the last decades, which has threatened its sustainable development. As one of the solutions, the Chinese government is promoting chemical process safety education to train interdisciplinary graduates who understand both chemical process and loss prevention, who are skilled in technology, and how to manage risk. In this paper, we reviewed the development of chemical process safety education in China by researching syllabuses of accredited undergraduate Chemical Engineering and Safety Engineering majors in higher education institutions, discussed the associated shortcomings by analyzing the current discipline construction of the newly established major Chemical Safety Engineering, including education methodologies, resources, faculties, curriculum provision, and professional accreditation. Based on the analysis results, suggestions were provided to encourage institutions to strengthen chemical process safety education, thereby inherently reducing human errors and consequently improving the safety of the entire CPI.

Process safety education of future employee 4.0 in Industry 4.0

The term “Industry 4.0″, which refers to a fourth industrial revolution, is a recent neologism. The rise of digital technology including, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things and networks, “smart” and responsive devices, etc … is more and more omnipresent. In solving the related challenges of Industry 4.0, it is necessary to improve the involvement and training of employers and employees. This is particularly true for their education in process safety. Two surveys were submitted to the relevant stakeholders. Their results showed absence of Industry 4.0 topics in the current courses on process safety. On the other hand, a review of the master's degree programs available in Europe revealed the recent emergence of new highly specialized courses in some of the topics of Industry 4.0. The definition of “Safety 4.0″ leads to recommend two potential global training pathways, with one corresponding to the requirements of Industry 4.0 & Safety 4.0 intersections, recommended within the framework of pedagogical taxonomy models.

Process safety education: A comparative study

More than a decade ago Dutch and German Institutions expressed their worries about the decline in education on and research in the field of Process Safety. More recently the IChemE (UK) published a report “Improve Process Safety Education in Undergraduate engineering”. In France several publications from teaching staff of multiple universities raise questions on “why, what, and how to teach Process Safety”. The Dutch Institution AGS† made a number of recommendeations to counter-act the decline, the German Institution Dechema-ProcessNet released a position paper with recommendations for Education, in France the discussion continues, especially for the content of the study prgramme of the Engineering Schools.Time to investigate if the worries are still valid and what has been done with the recommendations.From a selection European universities, the curricula Chemical Engineering (both BSc and MSc) were examined for the presence of courses ‘Process Safety’. If present, the topics taught within and the time involved (as % ECTS from the total ECTS of the curriculum) were analysed. The analysis shows that the time taken to teach process safety subjects is on average 1.6 % of the total ECTS of the BSc curriculum and 3.4 % for the MSc curriculum. Next, the study searched for key-words in the description of the courses Process Safety. The key-words were categorised to allow a sensible analysis. The gathered data have been clustered into topics, using domains (AGS) and taxonomy (MKOPSC) as a guide. Furthermore, the study reveals that there is no consensus on what subjects to be educated as the ‘absolute minimum’ in curricula Chemical Engineering. Neither in the regular curricula nor in the ‘Advanced MSc’ ones, is a common base found on what to teach as a minimum. A foreseeable consequence of the limited amount of time devoted to Process Safety in regular BSc and MSc curricula, is that the subjects are taught in one or two courses rather than spread evenly over years or semesters. Rather than in one single course, educationalists would prefer to teach engineering and safety courses alternately.Examination of the course contents shows that the subjects taught within process safety courses are well-known, leaving less room to discuss new theories. This is quite acceptable for undergraduate education but for graduate programmes and especially the Advanced MSc, subjects at the forefront of knowledge would be expected. Operating in the forefront of knowledge will originate from research and as pointed out by the Dutch AGS report, a critical mass of research staff is needed to safeguard the development of new knowledge. Alas, the opposite is seen. As the number of students choosing science declines, staff is reduced, chairs are abolished and research effort diminishes accordingly. However, the needs of industry doesn’t decline proportionally. For that reason a plea is made to join forces and build an Advanced MSc programme ‘Process Safety’ taught by a partnership of several universities, with some distribution of safety research in partnership.

Process Safety Education: A Comparitive Study

The immediate causes for the study are discussions with staff from multiple European Universities, articles and position papers of advisory committees and professional organization. They all express their worries about both the decline of education of process safety in the curricula of Chemical Engineering and the decline of research in process safety subjects

Feedback on use of inspection reports of industrial establishments as teaching aids for process safety in the French chemical engineering curriculum

Numerous teaching aids are available for process safety education. In this article, the contents of the public and mandatory inspection reports of industrial installations classified for environmental protection are used as teaching aids. The contribution of these documents has been experimented, in addition to the teaching of process safety, within the framework of a Master degree in chemical engineering from the University of Lorraine at the “National Higher School of Chemical Industries” (ENSIC) of Nancy (France). The recommended content of a “Regional Direction for the Environment, Planning and Housing” (DREAL) inspection report is first recalled. The protocol for the use of Seveso sheets, inspection reports and letters of notification by students is then described. The pedagogical interaction between the basic knowledge of process safety previously acquired and the elements extracted from the inspection reports is discussed and illustrated by a few examples.

Process safety education: Selecting the concepts for a process safety program (article 1/2)

AbstractThe content of an Advanced Master's in Safety Engineering lays the foundation for different initiatives regarding commitment to process safety as expressed by the chemical industry in Belgium. Process safety education is a very broad interdisciplinary topic in which various concepts deserve integration and sufficient and balanced academic attention. The definition, selection, and review of these concepts form the backbone described in this research, which considers the selection of relevant concepts based on literature review, analysis of historic and recent incidents that occurred in the process industry, and validation by the chemical major hazard industry. This article describes the methodology of the research and the results of both the literature review and analysis of incidents. The validation phase by the industry will be the subject of subsequent article.

Student perspectives on integrating industrial practice in risk and process safety education

Strong links with industry are important for producing industry ready graduates. This is especially crucial when students are learnining about risk and process safety. Risk and process safety are taught in two courses at The University of Queensland. The first course is a compulsory 4th year course called ‘Risk in Process Industries’. The second course is an elective course offered at the Masters level called ‘Integrated Safety Design and Management’. Significant effort has been deployed to develop strong links between both these courses and industry. These links span the people, places, processes, problems and projects the students are exposed to. This article details these efforts. It also describes a survey of students’ perspectives to determine the efficacy of these efforts, and to identify potential opportunities to further improve the courses. Preliminary results from this survey revealed that the courses are changing the way that students think, and that they perceived them as being valuable in developing professional engineering competencies. Significantly, 97% (85 out of 88) of student respondents stated that the course will change the way that they think or act as a professional in industry. In their assessment of specific course content, students found case studies to be the easiest to understand, most interesting and most relevant to industry. Other insights gained, reveal opportunities for improvement that warrant further investigation.

Instruction of hazard analysis of methods for chemical process safety at the university level

Young practicing chemical engineers must be able to operate safely in an industrial setting. Therefore, chemical process safety education is essential for undergraduate chemical engineers and ABET (the University Accreditation Board) supports this initiative by requiring that university graduates understand the hazards associated with chemical processes. One way to understand the hazards associated with processes is to conduct a process hazard analysis. This analysis can be conducted in an experiential learning environment by collaborating with an industrial partner or by utilizing facilities on the university campus. In this environment students are able to see and interact with the processes under normal operating conditions. Utilizing industrial or research mentors allows students to receive formative feedback as they analyze the process. In addition, these process hazard analyses require students to practice “soft skills” such as teamwork, problem solving, and oral and written communication which are essential work place skills. This paper reviews teaching hazard analysis methods to chemical engineering students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Covered are examples of how students are introduced to the checklist and bowtie analysis methods, and the conduction of a HAZOP. Examples of the different resources that can be utilized are described. Ultimately, from these experiences, students are more prepared to enter the chemical process industries with first-hand knowledge of how to conduct various hazard analyses before reaching their place of employment.

Process safety education - learning at the level of the establishment and at the human level

Major industrial accidents, such as the accidents in Seveso (1976) or in Bhopal (1984), did occur in the past. They still happen contemporarily, eg. fire in Arkema Inc. on August 29, 2017 or in BASF Corporation October 17, 2016 and there is little doubt that they will keep on occurring in the future. Lack of or insufficient learning, drawing no conclusions from accidents or even forgetting about them might be viewed as some of the reasons for such state of affairs.Learning can be considered at the level of the whole establishment (learning organization) as well as at the level of a particular person. With the use of Peter Sange's definition of learning organization and its five characteristics: thinking systems, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning, we can diagnose the weaknesses and strengths of establishment as an organization that can learn. However the learning process of the individual depends directly on the way the lecturer delivers knowledge. The use of the division of professional qualifications into mental, practical and personality traits with the application of Bloom's taxonomy (classification of educational learning objectives) and Niemierko's taxonomy (classification used in Poland) allows us to look at training in a different, more practical way.Training methods and organizational solutions, especially in process safety, play a key role as they transform into the need to use the acquired knowledge in practice, in a real situation, under pressure at the moment of accident. There is a reason the key elements of the system for the prevention of major industrial accidents, i.e. the safety management system and emergency plans, are based on systematic training and continuous improvement. Emerging concepts and methods of occupational safety and health management intertwined with resilience engineering, such as Safety II, Zero Accident Vision or Human & Organizational Performance can be successfully used in process safety.

Continuous Improvement in Process Safety Education

The importance of continuous improvement is emphasized in this paper from the perspectives of process safety education in general and university process safety courses in particular. Feedback on concept familiarity from undergraduate and graduate students was used to adjust the learning outcomes developed for one such course. In this manner, the plan/do/check/act protocol utilized in industrial process safety management systems was applied to academia. The paper concludes with a brief examination of other means of continuous improvement, including forward visioning exercises and learning outcome/competency guidelines produced by technical organizations.

Process safety education and training academic education as a foundation for other process safety initiatives on education

Commitment to process safety is fundamental to the process industry. Governance, promotion, and participation in academic and related educational programs are testament to the industry's commitment and stakeholder reach. Process safety education and training is a very broad topic. Industry‐academic collaboration is essential when developing high level education and training on process safety. This article looks at the development of educational and training programmes for students in Advanced Master programmes in the European master network and for experienced industry workers. The Advanced Master Safety Engineering developed at the University has a proven track record in realizing the intended learning outcomes along with a high level of academic and professional orientation as well as international orientation. The results related to the learning outcomes are very satisfying, which implies that there is a good relationship between the intended learning outcomes, the programme and the evaluation tests. The associated Advanced Master Class on process safety has a very satisfying overall trainee satisfaction (Level 1) and learning gains (Level 2) evaluation in the Kirkpatrick's Model. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 36: 414–421, 2017