Day 1 – Foundations of Process Safety Culture
Morning Session: Defining Process Safety Culture
Fundamental Concepts:
- Distinction between personal safety and process safety (frequency vs. consequence dimension).
- Academic origins of safety culture:
- James Reason
- HSE guidance, and
- Energy Institute’s Human & Organizational Factors.
- Core values and behaviors:
- Integrity of barriers
- Escalation of deviations, and
- Refusal to normalize anomalies.
Cultural Components:
- Leadership commitment:
- Decision-making under competing priorities (production vs. safety).
- Workforce engagement:
- Role of competence
- Ownership, and
- Accountability:
- Ensuring line management ownership of process safety.
Regulatory Contexts:
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.119 Process Safety Management and its cultural implications.
- EU Seveso III Directive cultural provisions.
- Comparison with Energy Institute “Leading Indicators” model.
Afternoon Session: Frameworks for Risk-Based Process Safety (RBPS)
CCPS RBPS Model:
- Four pillars:
- Commitment to Process Safety
- Understanding Hazards & Risks
- Risk Management, and
- Learning from Experience.
- The 20 elements and their cultural interfaces:
- Competence
- Operational Discipline, and
- Incident Investigation.
Human & Organizational Factors (HOF):
- Cognitive workload and human error traps.
- Ergonomics and usability of procedures.
- Role of supervision, communication.
- Organizational resilience.
Contractor and Interface Challenges:
- Cultural alignment across company and contractor boundaries:
- Contractor onboarding
- Permit compliance, and
- Accountability chains.
- Case example: contractor-induced barrier bypass during maintenance.
Day 2 – Indicators, Measurement, and Barrier Management
Morning Session: Process Safety KPIs
API RP 754:
- Tier 1 & 2:
- Process Safety Events (PSEs) – significant losses of containment.
- Tier 3:
- Challenges to safety systems – relief valve lifts
- SIS activations, and
- Flare operation.
- Tier 4:
- Leading activities – overdue inspections
- Late MOCs, and
- Training completion rates.
International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) Report 456:
- Normalization of KPIs for upstream operations (per million work hours, per asset).
- Indicators for wells.
- Gathering facilities.
- Sour gas handling.
Designing Indicators for Critical Controls:
- Example:
- Corrosion monitoring for pipelines, and
- PSV proof-testing compliance.
- Defining measurable performance standards for each barrier.
- Integration into dashboards for leadership.
Afternoon Session: Bow-Tie & Barrier Thinking
Bow-Tie Methodology:
- Hazard–Top Event–Consequence chain:
- Prevention & mitigation barriers
- Degradation factors, and
- Assurance tasks.
Barrier Performance Standards:
- Availability
- Functionality
- Reliability
- survivability
- Response time
- Periodic testing requirements
- Workshop Application:
- Bow-tie for H₂S release in a processing plant.
- Bow-tie for fire/explosion in compressor stations.
- Linking each barrier to KPIs and assurance tasks.
Day 3 – Functional Safety, Discipline, and Change Management
Morning Session: Functional Safety Integration
- IEC 61511 Safety Lifecycle:
- Hazard & risk analysis.
- Safety Instrumented Function (SIF) allocation.
- SIL verification.
- Proof test intervals.
- Bypass management.
- Demand rate analysis.
- Instrumented Protective Layers:
- Integration with LOPA (Layer of Protection Analysis).
- Failure modes of SIS components:
- Sensors
- Logic solvers, and
- Final elements.
- Alarm Management:
- Nuisance alarms and operator overload.
- ISA-18.2 standards and cultural implications.
Afternoon Session: Operational Discipline & Management of Change (MOC)
- Operational Discipline (OD):
- Why procedures fail:
- Poor usability
- Missing steps, and
- Unclear responsibility.
- Avoiding normalization of deviance:
- Drift from standard practices.
- Human performance reliability under stress and fatigue.
- MOC:
- Types of changes:
- Ttechnical
- Organizational, and
-
- Cultural traps:
- Rushed approvals
- Poor hazard reviews, and
- Lack of post-implementation checks.
- Permit-to-Work (PTW) & SIMOPS:
- Critical roles:
- Issuing authority
- Performing authority, and
- Area authority.
- Isolation standards and Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) culture.
- Managing simultaneous operations:
- Hot work with hydrocarbon-in-service.
Day 4 – Learning Systems and Cultural Diagnostics
Morning Session: Learning from Incidents
- Incident Learning Models:
- Heinrich’s triangle vs. modern weak-signal analysis.
- Capturing and acting upon near misses and hazard observations.
- Investigation Quality:
- Root Cause Analysis vs. Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA).
- Human and organizational factor inclusion in investigations.
- Avoiding blame culture and fostering just culture.
- Cross-Industry Learning:
- Case histories:
- Texas City Refinery
- Buncefield explosion, and
- Macondo blowout.
- Cultural breakdowns that enabled technical failures.
Afternoon Session: Cultural Diagnostics
- Assessment Tools:
- Safety climate surveys:
- Structured behavioral observations.
- Leadership interviews & focus groups.
- Benchmarking:
- IOGP and CCPS cultural maturity models.
- Defining maturity levels (pathological → bureaucratic → generative culture).
- Practical Exercise:
- Analyzing a mock dataset:
- KPIs
- Audit results, and
- Near misses.
- Producing a diagnostic report with prioritized cultural gaps.
Day 5 – Implementation Roadmap and Assurance
Morning Session: Cultural Improvement Strategy
- Designing the Roadmap:
- Vision, objectives, and leadership commitment.
- Competence development and training needs analysis.
- Aligning cultural interventions with management systems (ISO 45001, IEC 61511).
- Engagement & Communication:
- Safety leadership behaviors:
- Visible commitment, and
- Field presence.
- Use of safety moments & visual barrier dashboards.
- Contractor alignment & engagement.
Afternoon Session: Governance & Assurance
- Multi-Tier Assurance Systems:
- First-line checks (frontline supervision).
- Second-line audits (HSSE/process safety team).
- Third-line independent reviews.
- KPI Governance:
- Executive dashboards linking Tier 1–4 KPIs.
- Monthly and quarterly performance reviews.
- Escalation triggers for impaired barriers.
- Final Workshop:
- Develop a 12-month cultural improvement roadmap.
- Assign:
- Owners
- Milestones, and
- Verification mechanisms.
- Define expected shifts in KPIs and cultural maturity level.