Process Safety Management (PSM)
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Process Advisory Services offers a full range of process safety management evaluation and optimization services. We have developed, deployed, and optimized PSM systems for a major chemical company, and are fully capable of leading process hazard analyses utilizing all major methodologies for assessment of processes handling highly hazardous chemicals.
PAS can review your current PSM programs for compliance with the OSHA standard, and can validate your existing PHAs for compliance with the "five-year rule" contained in the Standard. Because of our involvement in developing industry best practices, we can ensure that your system and all its components not only meet the letter and spirit of the regulations, but do so in ways that add value to your engineering, operations, and HSE business processes, and ultimately, your bottom line. Contact us today to arrange a confidential evaluation of your company's PSM programs and level of compliance.
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OSHA PSM was a great leap forward in ensuring the safety of workers involved in the manufacture of hazardous chemicals. It was also, and still is, a major engineering and recordkeeping issue for any company covered by it, and that means most companies in the petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries, since most “make, use, or store” large quantities of hazardous materials. Every time a process change occurs, a complex change management process is triggered, including updating drawings and SOPs, and revisiting or undertaking new hazard reviews.
The good news is that the industry (CPI for our purposes) by-and-large stepped up to this bureaucratic challenge and met all the requirements of the Standard: formal systems were developed and deployed, PHAs were conducted and confirmed, change management systems were installed or refined, and a culture of “process safety” was instilled into our colleagues in operating plants across the country, and throughout the world.
The less good news is that PSM systems, with all their many requirements, have not always been maintained with the zeal of the initial implementations. As one point of current concern for companies operating covered processes, the Standard requires that:
At least every five (5) years after the completion of the initial process hazard analysis, the process hazard analysis shall be updated and revalidated by a team meeting the requirements in paragraph (e)(4) of this section, to assure that the process hazard analysis is consistent with the current process. [1910.119(e)(6)]
This means that, even if nothing has changed in the process, the hazard review must essentially be redone to meet the letter of the Standard, not to mention the spirit of the regulation. Click [HERE] to review the PSM Standard at www.osha.gov.
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