Process safety consulting for the chemical, petrochemical, refinery, and oil and gas industries
Bluefield Profile
Principal: Mike Schmidt
As Principal of Bluefield Process Safety, LLC Mike leads process safety design. He facilitates the conduct of PHAs (particularly Haz-Ops), risk assessments (particularly LOPA and OCA), the establishment of Risk Tolerance Criteria, performing SIL assignment, defining SRSs, and performing SIL calculations. Mike’s work centers on the hazards of fire, explosion, and toxic exposure, and includes burner management systems and regulatory compliance. He also develops procedures for performing this work, and develops and teaches courses on these subjects.
Example projects include a specialty chemicals plant, ethoxylation units, a natural gas pipeline, ammonia/AN plants, a coal gasification plant, an ethylene plant, polymerization units, and biofuels plants.
As Principal Consultant at the Emerson Process Management Refining and Chemical Industry Center, Mike led process safety and design. He supervised and engineered the preparation of project proposals, process designs, PFDs and P&IDs, SIL verification calculations, and conceptual designs for safety instrumented systems and burner management systems.
Example projects included a global program of SIS upgrades at over 30 polymer plants on five continents, HazOp and LOPA facilitation for a greenfield cellulosic ethanol plant, LOPA facilitation at a major refinery, a program of expansions at several ag chemical plants, a metal powder catalyst development program, process review and PSM validation at an ethanol plant, compliance assistance for a biotech plant seeking VPP Star status, and process design for an electronic-grade chemicals plant.
As Office Director for a consulting engineering firm, Mike recruited staff and led multi-disciplined efforts, including process, E&I, and mechanical engineering. As Group Leader and Project Manager, his projects included pressure relief design and PSM documentation for a pesticide plant, fugitive emission studies, process work at a corn milling plant, and process design.
As a Principal Process Engineer at Air Products, Mike oversaw the regulatory, technical, and logistical aspects of technology transfer from R&D into pilot, then production scale at the Wichita Plant, both of new products and new or improved solid catalyzed (carbon and metal powder substrates) processes. Additionally, Mike led capital projects, including a distillation unit.
As Microcontamination Control Manager for Shipley Company (now Dow Chemical), Mike led interdepartmental and vendor efforts to improve product purity to ppb levels. Mike was the Team Leader for teams that re-designed batch processes and implemented statistical process control and other Six Sigma approaches. He was responsible for the technical aspects of product commercialization and the qualification and production of custom organic photochemical and polymer suppliers.
As Lead Engineer for Brewer Science, then a startup company, Mike scaled up and operated polyimide and novolac manufacturing processes and was responsible for all aspects of EH&S regulatory compliance.
Mike began his career as an Engineering Intern during his undergraduate and graduate studies working for the Linde Division of Union Carbide (now Praxair) at a cryogenic gas plant.
Education:
B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1980,
University of Missouri-Rolla
M.S Chemical Engineering, 1985,
University of Missouri-Rolla
MBA (International Operations), 1990, Babson College
Expertise:
Hazardous Materials
PHA facilitation (Checklist, What-If, HazOp, Fault Tree)
Likelihood Analysis (LOPA)
Consequence Analysis
SRS preparation, SIS design, and IEC 61511 compliance
Burner Management Systems
PSM and RMP compliance
Registration:
Kansas—Professional Engineer
Missouri—Professional Engineer
Illinois—Professional Engineer
Oklahoma—Professional Engineer
Certified Functional Safety Expert
Recent Publications and Papers:
“Selecting Clean Valves,” Chemical Engineering, June 2001.
“Don’t Get Burned—Know the Limits of Flammable and Combustible Fluids,” Chemical Engineering, November 2002.
“Tolerable Risk,” Chemical Engineering, September 2007.
“Beyond 2003—Multi-Sensor Architecture in SIF Design,” Emerson Global Users Exchange, September 2007.
“What About?...Using Bypasses, DBB, and Other Process Features in SIFs,” Emerson Global Users Exchange, October 2008.
“What Now? More Standards for Safety and Regulatory Compliance,” Emerson Global Users Exchange, September 2010.
Mike’s work centers on the hazards of fire, explosion, and toxic exposure, and includes burner management systems and regulatory compliance. He also develops procedures for performing this work, and develops and teaches courses on these.
OSHA’s position on ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004
OSHA’s position on ANSI/ISA 84.01-1996
OSHA’s PSM Standard (29 CFR 1910.119)
OSHA’s PSM Standard Compliance Guidelines
Frequently asked questions about RMP
Additional RMP Program Guidance
RMP Guidance for Offsite Consequence Analysis
Center for Chemical Process Safety
CCPS Introduction to Inherently Safer Design
CCPS Process Safety Beacon newsletter
Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center
Free read only access to all NFPA Standards
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