[ Process vs Personal ]

“[We] cannot manage process safety risk by managing personal safety alone.” This is a correct and insightful statement by Sean Brady*.

After a high-consequence failure in the oil&gas industry, the investigation often identifies management structure, reporting lines, and rewards models as contributing factors to the failure.

Businesses in the hazardous facilities arena rightly focus on personal (worker) safety. However, with pipelines, which transport energy through public spaces, it’s possible to have no workers anywhere near the asset; yet pipeline failure could have a massive impact on people (not workers).

Process/pipeline safety keeps the stuff inside where it’s supposed to be.

(*See here for more and better explanation by Sean himself: https://lnkd.in/guQwMCir)