Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Process Safety

“You’re a hero one day, you’re a villain another day.”  — Vincent Tan Every good story is a story of conflict. It has a villain. It has a victim. And in the best stories, it has a hero. The story of a process incident or scenario is no different. It has villains—causes. It has victims—receptors, [...]

By |2020-02-06T16:15:35-06:00February 6th, 2020|Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Process Safety

What We Know: Another Explosion in Houston

“All I know is what I read in the papers.”  — Will Rogers When there is a catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals, I want to know about it. I want to know what happened, why it happened, and what I can learn to keep it from happening again. I go to news accounts. All [...]

By |2020-02-03T20:35:41-06:00January 30th, 2020|Chemicals, Current Events, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on What We Know: Another Explosion in Houston

Employee Retention as a Safety Solution: How to Keep Good Employees

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” -W.E. Deming According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 40 million American workers quit their jobs in 2018.  That’s almost 27% of the workforce.  Furthermore, a 2019 survey revealed that 75% of employees in the U.S. do not stay at their jobs for more [...]

By |2020-01-23T15:40:10-06:00January 23rd, 2020|Workplace Safety|1 Comment

2018 BLS Fatality Report: Has Anything Changed?

“The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  — Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr When I was a young engineer living in a small town in central Massachusetts, I would walk into the town center to pick up groceries and go to the post office. On the way, there was a body shop. I got [...]

By |2019-12-26T16:34:36-06:00December 26th, 2019|Workplace Safety|Comments Off on 2018 BLS Fatality Report: Has Anything Changed?

Improving Human Performance Reliability

 “We must accept human error as inevitable - and design around that fact.”  — Donald Berwick The idea of human error and its contribution to industrial incidents has been the center of debate in recent years.  If you’ve been part of more than one incident investigation, you’ve probably experienced an incident being attributed to human [...]

By |2019-11-21T14:58:07-06:00November 21st, 2019|Procedures, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Improving Human Performance Reliability

A Fatal Cleaning Incident: Familiarity Breeds …

“While devastated at this unimaginable loss, we are so very proud that Ryan died while trying to protect his fellow employees and restaurant patrons.”  — family of Ryan Baldera On November 7, 2019, a restaurant employee in Burlington, Massachusetts was overcome by fumes from a “strong chemical cleaning agent” and died. Thirteen others were taken [...]

By |2019-11-14T17:48:11-06:00November 14th, 2019|Chemicals, Current Events, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on A Fatal Cleaning Incident: Familiarity Breeds …

Out of the Blocks: Credit for Human Response

“Fear is often our immediate response to uncertainty.”  — Gabrielle Bernstein In 2001, when the CCPS book, Layer of Protection Analysis: Simplified Process Risk Assessment, “the purple book”, stated that human response is “a relatively weak protection layer” and “less reliable than engineering controls”, many people were willing to accept that piece of conventional wisdom. [...]

Dia de los Muertos: Remembering the Dead

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  — George Santayana Our offices on Cherokee Street exist in the midst of a vibrant Hispanic community. So here in our neighborhood, Dia de los Muertos is in getting in full swing and will be observed through November 2. Dia de los Muertos, the [...]

By |2019-11-09T22:22:19-06:00October 31st, 2019|Chemicals, Current Events, Process Safety, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Dia de los Muertos: Remembering the Dead

Fools Rush In: What We Really Expect

“For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.”  — Alexander Pope I once led some process safety training that involved people from several different plants from around the world. After almost a week together, the people in the training became pretty comfortable with one another.  One of the last topics of the training was [...]

By |2019-10-10T14:13:31-05:00October 10th, 2019|Procedures, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Fools Rush In: What We Really Expect

Changing the Bet: The Safety Experience

“When you gamble with safety, you bet your life.”  Slogan on an industrial entrance mat The biggest obstacle to getting people to heed safety training is that unsafe behavior does not result in certain death. The problem with a safety slogan like, “When you gamble with safety, you bet your life,” is that most people, [...]

By |2019-10-03T14:19:21-05:00October 3rd, 2019|Training, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Changing the Bet: The Safety Experience
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