This Is Not a Drill

“Air raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not a drill.”  —Lt. Cmdr. Logan Ramsey, 7-Dec-1941 'Beauty' Ramsey sent one of the most famous telegrams of history after watching a Japanese dive bomber’s payload detonate in Pearl Harbor. Other telegrams went out that morning, from the Navy Yard and Kaneohe, but they were largely ignored until smoke [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:07:34-06:00December 7th, 2017|Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on This Is Not a Drill

“It’s Always Been That Way”: Normalization of Deviation

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.” [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:08:31-06:00November 9th, 2017|Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Training, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on “It’s Always Been That Way”: Normalization of Deviation

Safety Lifecycle – Part 3: Developing Risk Tolerance Criteria

“If we accept there is no such thing as ‘zero risk’ then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as ‘all accidents are preventable.’ – Dr. Rob Long In terms of process safety, one definition of risk is, “[The] combination of the frequency of occurrence of harm [the likelihood] and severity [...]

By |2017-11-14T21:26:31-06:00October 12th, 2017|PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Risk Assessment, Safety Lifecycle, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Safety Lifecycle – Part 3: Developing Risk Tolerance Criteria

Mechanical Integrity – Basics

“A man who lacks reliability is utterly useless” - Confucius Mechanical Integrity is an essential element of an efficient process and a safe, cost-effective facility. Furthermore, OSHA’s PSM Standard (29 CFR 1910.119[j]) requires it.  And yet, for decades Mechanical Integrity has been a leading cause of OSHA citations.  For all of the studies and journal [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:12:28-06:00September 14th, 2017|Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Mechanical Integrity – Basics

Backward Looking Vs. Forward Looking

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”  Henry Ford Your company has had an incident or a near miss, the investigation is closed and the cause has been determined.  Now what?  In an ideal world, the goal is a return to normal operations with a lower likelihood that the incident [...]

Red Shirts: Reducing Occupancy to Reduce Risk

“Red Shirt: In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties who often suffer quick deaths.[”  Wikipedia I didn’t see the NBC television series, Star Trek, until it went into syndication, when it became a staple of television viewing for everyone I knew while I was in college. [...]

Incident Investigations – The Blame Game

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”  Albert Einstein In Incident Investigations: A Guide for Employers, OSHA defines an incident as “a work-related event in which an injury or ill-health (regardless of severity) or fatality occurred, or could have occurred.”  Incidents vary from large scale, such as the [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:41:36-06:00July 6th, 2017|Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Incident Investigations – The Blame Game

Operating Procedures – We Need Them

Every part of an organization is dependent on documented procedures to mitigate risk and improve productivity and performance. – Deborah Kenny At Bluefield Process Safety, I have had a chance to work on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for multiple organizations. I have worked with some organizations that either lack SOPs for some or most tasks, [...]

By |2017-07-21T18:20:56-05:00May 2nd, 2017|Procedures, Process Safety Management, Safety Lifecycle|Comments Off on Operating Procedures – We Need Them

Is America First without the Chemical Safety Board?

“At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security.”  Jodi Rell At Bluefield Process Safety, our mission is to make the world a safer place. One of the resources we utilize to help us achieve our mission is the recommendations and safety videos released by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB). [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:57:07-06:00March 28th, 2017|Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Is America First without the Chemical Safety Board?

Enabling: When a helping hand is no help at all

“Stopping enabling isn’t easy. Nor is it for the faint of heart. Aside from likely pushback and possible retaliation, you may also fear the consequences of doing nothing.”  – Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT, expert on codependency I hate to see an operating company fined for safety violations.  First, it means that they were out of [...]

By |2025-01-17T12:57:35-06:00March 23rd, 2017|Process Safety Management, Recommendations|Comments Off on Enabling: When a helping hand is no help at all
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