Fire Suppression: You Can’t Take Credit? Really?

“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”  — Carl Jung I’ve been taught, and have taught others, that you can’t take credit for a fire suppression system in a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA). Why not? Because a fire suppression system doesn’t kick in until a fire [...]

By |2025-10-10T13:32:13-05:00October 10th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Fire Suppression: You Can’t Take Credit? Really?

OSHA Says: Promptly, Timely, and As Soon As Possible

“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.”  — Calvin Coolidge I love a good play on words. “At once” can mean either “simultaneously” or it can mean “immediately”, and Calvin Coolidge managed to pack both meanings into a single sentence. “We cannot do everything simultaneously, but we can do [...]

By |2025-09-29T11:52:57-05:00September 26th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on OSHA Says: Promptly, Timely, and As Soon As Possible

Process and Product Safety: Contaminants

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  — Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina I once worked with a facility that discharged process equipment cleaning water to the city sewer. They had a tough time staying below the discharge limits for copper. In turned out that the city water [...]

By |2025-11-06T11:14:13-06:00July 31st, 2025|Chemicals, Craft Distillery Safety, PHA, Process Safety|Comments Off on Process and Product Safety: Contaminants

Quantifying Consequences: RQs

“Quantity and persistence will get you the outcomes you need.”  — James Altucher One of the challenges of process hazard analysis is risk assessment. To determine whether additional risk reduction is required, the team must quantify the risk and compare it to risk tolerance criteria. For the risk tolerance criteria to be useful to the [...]

By |2025-07-03T14:53:11-05:00July 3rd, 2025|Chemicals, PHA, Process Safety|Comments Off on Quantifying Consequences: RQs

Tank Truck Relief Valves: Accept Them As Layers of Protection?

“The ancient Greeks and Romans also held the view that acceptance is the beginning of wisdom.”  — Simon Van Booy PHA teams often face the question of whether to address tank truck loading and unloading. On the one hand, trucks in transit are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), not the [...]

By |2025-07-03T14:57:02-05:00June 20th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Tank Truck Relief Valves: Accept Them As Layers of Protection?

A+: What Is A Perfect PHA?

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”  — Vince Lombardi I don’t believe that I have ever facilitated a perfect PHA. The question is, how would I recognize it if it was perfect? And would others agree? What exactly is a perfect PHA? A PHA Identifies Hazards The primary [...]

By |2025-05-08T16:39:47-05:00May 8th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Recommendations|Comments Off on A+: What Is A Perfect PHA?

“OSHA Says”: Thermal Exposure

“If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”  — Harry S. Truman For decades, I’ve told people that OSHA requires thermal protection on surfaces over 140°F (60 C) up to a height of 7 feet. People just accepted that because a) I was the expert and b) it made sense. Recently, though, [...]

By |2025-05-23T13:13:02-05:00April 10th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Risk Assessment, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on “OSHA Says”: Thermal Exposure

Gambling With Safety: Acceptable Risk vs. Tolerable Risk

“How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”  ‑ Herbert Spencer I once worked for an organization where senior managers freely expressed their differences of opinion. Often, they would dismiss a colleague’s position, saying, “That’s just semantics.” It became easy for me to conclude that semantics, the meaning of words and statements, were trivial. I know better [...]

By |2025-03-06T10:09:11-06:00March 6th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Risk Assessment|Comments Off on Gambling With Safety: Acceptable Risk vs. Tolerable Risk

Tick Tock, Tick Tock: Is It Time for a PHA Revalidation?

“Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future.”  — Steve Miller The Process Safety Management (PSM) standard, 29 CFR 1910.119, states in (e)(6) 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 [...]

By |2025-01-23T10:56:23-06:00January 23rd, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Tick Tock, Tick Tock: Is It Time for a PHA Revalidation?

Recommendations: Evolution of an Approach

“The hardest thing is writing a recommendation for someone we know.”  — Kin Hubbard We’ve all heard, over and over, that data without analysis is useless. Well, analysis without recommendations is just as useless. Unfortunately, many young engineers are incredible analysts but then mistakenly believe that their analysis will stand on its own, that the [...]

By |2025-01-09T10:31:25-06:00January 9th, 2025|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Recommendations: Evolution of an Approach
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