Over the past few months I have sporadically been presenting a DSEAR (Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres) training course to front line operators at an English Water Company (no, not that one, or even that one…). One of the topics covered is Zoning – the demarcation of areas of sites where the likelihood of an explosive atmosphere being present is elevated. Process Safety is another, where one of the distinctions made with Occupational Safety (e.g. slips, trips and falls) is that, generally, Process Safety hazards are not readily detectable by our senses.
You should be able to see a step in front of you and hear a fork lift truck in your vicinity, but it is much more difficult to sense a Process safety hazard before any loss of containment (release of toxic or flammable fluids). Once this happens, your sense may be rapidly alerted – loud bang, almighty flash, over powering smell or taste – before you (and those around you) succumb soon thereafter.
One approach to this challenge is to promote constant vigilance for personnel in facilities where there are Process Hazards – Chronic Unease. The idea may be attractive to its proponents, but in practice probably reduces safety by significantly raising personnel base levels of stress levels resulting in chronic health issues and/or operational transgressions.
The Water Company has adopted a different approach. I would say it is more realistic, humane and effective. It has started to provide what one could call ‘sense’ aids. Examples include generating clear signage such as in the image above depicting areas of heightened explosive risk. These can help to engender appropriate levels of temporary unease (flipping our mental state from auto pilot to manual), prompting conscious thought and precaution. Another is portable dangerous substance monitors (indicating the proximity of threshold concentrations and translating this into a sound). A third is a directive to ‘take a break to reflect’ if personnel sense (6th sense?) that something isn’t right.
Our senses are our best defence for protecting ourselves in the realm of Occupational Safety.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could harness them protect us (and our colleagues) from Process Hazards as well.
Article by Angus Keddie
Process Safety Matters
