Déjà Vu at BioLab: What Can We All Learn?

“If they knew it was water-reactive, why did they store it in a warehouse with automatic sprinklers?”  — Chris Schmidt, retired pre-school teacher Wikipedia is a “go-to” source for quick information. Regarding the fire at the BioLab facility in Conyers, Georgia, however, it has this disclaimer: “Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and [...]

By |2024-10-29T14:19:32-05:00October 3rd, 2024|Chemicals, Current Events|Comments Off on Déjà Vu at BioLab: What Can We All Learn?

The Key Bridge Collapse: Are There Lessons for Us Now?

“Catastrophic bridge accidents are rare, but the number and severity of those due to ship collisions far exceed those due to winds, waves, and earthquakes combined.”  — Committee on Ship-Bridge Collisions (1983) On Tuesday, March 26, 2024, shortly before 1:30 am, the cargo ship Dali drifted into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge’s [...]

By |2024-04-04T09:57:08-05:00April 4th, 2024|Current Events, Procedures, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on The Key Bridge Collapse: Are There Lessons for Us Now?

A Flurry of Activity: Recent CSB Final Reports

“Once you start something, finish it. Don’t accumulate a backlog of unfinished projects.”  — Ed Bliss If you are on the Chemical Safety Board’s distribution list, you may have noticed a lot of trade releases from the CSB in your in-box during the last few weeks. They’ve been busy. A recent press release proudly announced [...]

By |2023-08-11T12:40:08-05:00August 11th, 2023|Current Events, Process Safety, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on A Flurry of Activity: Recent CSB Final Reports

Process Risk: Learning from Experience

“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”  — John Dewey There are too many celebrities and philosophers to count who have talked about the importance of their mistakes in shaping them. Many seem quite pleased, even proud, of the mistakes they’ve made and their ability to rise from them and go [...]

By |2022-02-24T14:56:55-06:00February 24th, 2022|PHA, Process Safety, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Process Risk: Learning from Experience

Written in Blood: Safety Lessons from Disasters

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”  — Lyndon B. Johnson Many of the lessons we learn in life are learned when we are children.  The one I remember most vividly is learning to ride a bike.  I was a stubborn child.  I refused to wear any safety [...]

By |2021-12-16T15:28:56-06:00December 16th, 2021|Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Written in Blood: Safety Lessons from Disasters

Previous Incidents: Learning from Mistakes

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”  — Henry Ford I know a young woman whose relationships are in a constant state of turmoil. She keeps picking the wrong guys and each relationship ends in heartbreak. “Why do I keep making the same mistake over and over?” Why indeed? I [...]

By |2020-07-30T17:36:15-05:00July 30th, 2020|Chemicals, PHA, Process Safety, Process Safety Management|Comments Off on Previous Incidents: Learning from Mistakes

Here We Go Again: Defunding the CSB

“Here we go again. Fighting for resources. What the hell am I doing here?”  — Brad Pitt as Roy McBride in Ad Astra I just received an email from a client. They were alarmed that the proposed Federal budget included, again, defunding the Chemical Safety Board, and wanted to know what they could do to [...]

By |2020-02-13T16:59:10-06:00February 13th, 2020|Current Events, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on Here We Go Again: Defunding the CSB

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

An Incident? Don’t Recommend Training!

“It’s not how we make mistakes, but how we correct them that defines us.”  — Rachel Wolchin One of the most common recommendations made as a result of incident safety investigations is “improved training,” especially when the investigation concludes that the incident was the result of an error. It is not because training is so [...]

By |2019-04-11T14:51:41-05:00April 11th, 2019|Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Recommendations, Training|Comments Off on An Incident? Don’t Recommend Training!

By the Book: Procedure Violations in Incident Investigations

“There is almost no human action or decision that cannot be made to look flawed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight.  It is essential that the critic should keep himself constantly aware of that fact.”  — Lord Anthony Hidden One of the insidious effects of hindsight bias is that it puts much [...]

By |2019-01-17T15:20:31-06:00January 17th, 2019|Procedures, Process Safety, Process Safety Management, Workplace Safety|Comments Off on By the Book: Procedure Violations in Incident Investigations
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