Trevor Kletz Research Articles

Design and operating practices for safe conveying of particulate solids

I am pleased to offer this treatise on the conveying of particulate solids. In doing so I wish to acknowledge the immense contributions of Trevor Kletz in providing guidance to the chemical process industries in many areas including inherently safer design principles and operating practices.

Inherent safety, ethics and human error

A patient is to have the damaged left kidney removed. To safeguard correctness of action several layers of expert checks have been performed prior to the operation, which results in the removal of the fully functional right kidney. Nobody asked the patient. The patient did not volunteer providing “unnecessary” information. The experts know everything … An untidy house made out of flammable materials. A careless smoker left his lit cigarette unattended. A blow of wind and the house comes in flames. Would better construction materials have prevented the accident in spite of the carelessness of the inhabitant? A tricky medical condition which is expected to provoke a patient's fast health deterioration and their slow death. The doctor takes the initiative and responsibility of performing a risky operation. The patient's life is saved and their health is re-established. This work is not, as initially intended, the result of a thorough investigation of accidents, neither contains a systematic collection of data that can support the conclusions or the suggestions made. It is in the main a compilation of personal views. These views have been established from the correlation of the results of numerous accident investigation reports with the causes of small and insignificant incidents. These incidents are related with the education of university students, regulations within an academic environment and from independent personal experience working in different countries and with people of different cultures. The analysis that follows, however, should not be perceived as a mere reference to university students and/or to a university environment. University is the place where the fundamental scientific and engineering principles are germinated while current and past university students are the future and current production and design engineers, respectively. The places where the presented incidents have occurred are not always relevant with the conclusions, thus they are not stated. The reason this article is presented here is that I believe that often, complex accidents, similarly to insignificant ones, often demonstrate an attitude which can be characterized as “inherently unsafe”. I take the view that the enormous human potential and the human ability to minimize accidents needs to become a focal point towards inherent safety. Restricting ourselves to human limitations and how we could “treat” or prevent humans from not making accidents needs to be re-addressed. The purpose of this presentation is to highlight observations and provoke a discussion on how we could possibly improve the understanding of safety related issues. I do not intent to reject or criticize existing methodologies. (The entire presentation is strongly influenced by Trevor Kletz's work although our views are often different.)

Lessons from Human Error Incidents in Process Plants

This paper describes four human error incidents in chemical process plants which I have personally observed, and discusses specific lessons from each of them. As often stated by Trevor Kletz, people respond to stories and examples, and hopefully these incidents will be useful in preventing similar incidents in the future. Fortunately none of the incidents resulted in serious safety consequences, although all cost some money and productivity. And, under other circumstances, similar errors in a more hazardous operation could have had serious safety consequences.

Have you got the right spares and instructions?

Process Safety ProgressVolume 23, Issue 3 p. 171-171 Have you got the right spares and instructions? Trevor Kletz, Trevor KletzSearch for more papers by this author Trevor Kletz, Trevor KletzSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 November 2004 https://doi.org/10.1002/prs.10028Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume23, Issue3September 2004Pages 171-171 RelatedInformation

Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 3: Lessons from Accidents and Historical Trends in Safety Engineering and Management

Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 3: Lessons from Accidents and Historical Trends in Safety Engineering and Management

Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 2: Hazop, Hazan and the Attitude of the Public to Technological Risk

(2002). Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 2: Hazop, Hazan and the Attitude of the Public to Technological Risk. Safety and Reliability: Vol. 22, The Markov Edition, pp. 40-49.

Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 1: Inherently Safer Design

Talking About Safety—An Interview with Trevor Kletz, Part 1: Inherently Safer Design

A course on Inherently Safer Design

Abstract The term ‘Inherently Safer Design’ (ISD) was coined by Trevor Kletz over two decades ago. It has, since the early nineties, been recognized as a most worthwhile approach by the chemical process industry, regulators and researchers as is evident from the large number of papers published and presented at conferences. One sure way of spreading a concept quickly is to start teaching about it. With this in mind, we have designed a course on ISD. A preamble to it and details of the topics covered are given in this paper. It can also be offered as a short, intensive, continuing education course. More details will be gladly provided to seekers.

One organisation's memory: The use of a computerised system to store and retrieve information on loss prevention

Plant/Operations ProgressVolume 1, Issue 1 p. 7-12 Article One organisation's memory: The use of a computerised system to store and retrieve information on loss prevention Ronald W. Fawcett, Ronald W. Fawcett Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., Petrochemicals Division, Wilton, Middlebrough, Cleveland, UK Ron Fawcett: obtained his BSc. and PhD. degrees at King's College, Durham University. He joined ICI in 1956 in the Research Department where he spent six years initially doing speculative research work and then development research on several of the company's processes. There followed two years in Technical Department evaluating new processes and extensions to existing ones and then some 10 years in Production as Plant Manager on the Wilton Power Station. He finally moved into the Technical Safety field and during the last two years has also been concerned with computer storage and retrieval of safety data and development of the system.Search for more papers by this authorTrevor A. Kletz, Trevor A. Kletz Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., Petrochemicals Division, Wilton, Middlebrough, Cleveland, UK Trevor Kletz: studied chemistry at Liverpool University and joined ICI 1944. His first seven years were spent on research, mainly on infra-red spectroscopy, and in 1952 he was transferred to Oil Works as manager of the iso-octane plant. He remained in Oil Works, apart from a two-year spell in Technical Department, until 1967 carrying out various jobs and gradually working his way up to assistant works manager. In 1968 he was appointed Petrochemicals Division's first technical safetv advisor with particular responsibility for process safety. He has taken special interest in the application of quantitative methods to safety problems.Search for more papers by this author Ronald W. Fawcett, Ronald W. Fawcett Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., Petrochemicals Division, Wilton, Middlebrough, Cleveland, UK Ron Fawcett: obtained his BSc. and PhD. degrees at King's College, Durham University. He joined ICI in 1956 in the Research Department where he spent six years initially doing speculative research work and then development research on several of the company's processes. There followed two years in Technical Department evaluating new processes and extensions to existing ones and then some 10 years in Production as Plant Manager on the Wilton Power Station. He finally moved into the Technical Safety field and during the last two years has also been concerned with computer storage and retrieval of safety data and development of the system.Search for more papers by this authorTrevor A. Kletz, Trevor A. Kletz Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., Petrochemicals Division, Wilton, Middlebrough, Cleveland, UK Trevor Kletz: studied chemistry at Liverpool University and joined ICI 1944. His first seven years were spent on research, mainly on infra-red spectroscopy, and in 1952 he was transferred to Oil Works as manager of the iso-octane plant. He remained in Oil Works, apart from a two-year spell in Technical Department, until 1967 carrying out various jobs and gradually working his way up to assistant works manager. In 1968 he was appointed Petrochemicals Division's first technical safetv advisor with particular responsibility for process safety. He has taken special interest in the application of quantitative methods to safety problems.Search for more papers by this author First published: January 1982 https://doi.org/10.1002/prsb.720010104Citations: 2 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume1, Issue1January 1982Pages 7-12 RelatedInformation