Staffing Assessment

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A Study of Effective Procedural Practices in
Refining and Chemical Operations
Peter Bullemer Human Centered Solutions pbullemer_at_
applyHCS.com
John Hajdukiewicz Honeywell john.hajdukiewicz_at_eart
hlink.net
This research was funded by the Abnormal
Situation Management Joint Research and
Development Consortium Visit www.asmconsortium.org
for more information.
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Purpose

• Objective Understand current challenges and
  successes in the development and use of
  procedures in the industrial process plant
  operations setting.
• Motivation Assist the ASM Consortium and the
  industry in general in improving on todays
  practices.

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Procedural Operations

• Definition The use of explicit guidelines and
  instructions that, when followed by operations
  personnel will minimize deviations from design or
  operating intent and avoid hazardous conditions
  or other undesirable outcomes.
• Regulations Federal Process Safety Management
  regulations administered by OSHA require the use
  of procedures in the process industries.

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Procedural Operations

• Operating Phases Startup, Normal, Temporary,
  Emergency, Shutdown
• Operating Limits Consequences of deviation and
  steps to correct or avoid deviations
• Safety and Health considerations Properties and
  hazards of chemicals, precautions to prevent
  exposure, actions to take if exposed, other
  special or unique hazards

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Procedural Operations

• Deployment Need to be easily accessible
• Currency Updated as frequently as necessary to
  assure they reflect current operating practices
• Quantity 50-200 for a given operator depending
  on number of areas qualified to operate

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Approach

• Site Visits
• 3 refineries
• 2 petrochemical plants
• Data collection
• 1-on-1 structured interviews
• Document and software reviews
• Scope
• Business drivers
• Impact of breakdowns
• Causes of breakdowns
• Common and unique practices

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Drivers

• Employee and Public Safety
• Regulatory and Standards Compliance
• Operational Effectiveness
• Loss Prevention and Environmental
• Knowledge Management and Training

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Impact of Breakdowns

• Site A 14 of reported incidents over 5 year
  period 10 of serious incidents Cost of 12M
  (8 of total losses)
• Site B 31 of reported incidents Cost not
  reported
• Site C and D Data not accessible in incident
  database
• Site E 10 of reported incidents Costs not
  reported

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Causes of Breakdowns

• Reported causes of breakdowns in procedural
  operations (n3 sites)

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Frequency of Breakdowns

• Operators subjective judgment of the relative
  frequency of causes (Frequent (9) gt1/month
  Occasional (3) 4-12/yr Infrequent (1) lt 4/yr)

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Effective Practices Areas

• Content
• Policy and Processes
• Technology Aids
• Development

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Content

• Overviews for lengthy procedures or activities
  involving multiple procedures (e.g. startup)
• Pocket checklist for routine procedures
• High level activity description
• Role responsibility
• Status check off

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Policy and Practices

• Risk-based assessment for procedure
  classification
• Numerical rating based on frequency of use,
  complexity and consequence
• 3 procedure types with different requirements for
  use
• Metrics to track the impact of procedural
  operations
• Causes enable identification of systemic issues
  influencing human performance (e.g., policy,
  training, development, enforcement )

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Technology Aids

• Automation to assist operators
• Time critical operations
• Operators in supervisory role
• Initiate automation response
• Coordinate manual actions with automated actions
• Decide whether to execute automated actions
• Monitor overall effectiveness
• On-line procedures in HTML format with links to
  reference materials
• Formatted better for online viewing
• Base procedure is smaller with links

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Development

• Comprehensive guidelines for procedural
  development
• Policy and Philosophy
• Drafting Guidelines Methodology
• Relevant Human Factors Guidelines
• Procedure Evaluation Checklist
• Recommended Work Usage
• Sample Procedure

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Conclusions

• Despite large investments in procedural
  management systems, the process industries are
  NOT obtaining desired benefits
• Lack of good metrics ? Lack of awareness of
  sources of breakdowns ? Lack of appropriate
  improvements ? Lack of benefits
• Application of human factors principles and
  methodologies are key to enabling effective
  practices
• Significant opportunity to improve on todays
  practices