I am often asked why I do these publications and how did they get started. Here is the history and reasoning behind the alerts. The year was 1993. Recent graduate and ready to save the world, my first job was at a ink resin plant in SW Louisiana. PSM was red hot as it had […]
At a minimum, the plan must include but is not limited to the following elements [29 CFR 1910.38(c)]: Means of reporting fires and other emergencies Evacuation procedures and emergency escape route assignments Procedures to be followed by employees who remain to operate critical plant operations before they evacuate Procedures to account for all employees after
In most circumstances, immediate evacuation is the best policy, especially if professional firefighting services are available to respond quickly. There may be situations where employee firefighting is warranted to give other workers time to escape or to prevent danger to others by the spread of a fire. In this case, you as the employer are
A lot of PSM/RMP covered processes utilize ventialtion as an engineering control within the process. And if this is the case, then OSHA and EPA require the facility to have supporting documentation to show that the ventilation will do what it it intended to do.
Some companies develop an elaborate generic energy control procedure and supplement the generic procedure with checklists or appendices to address various distinct machinery and equipment in their facilities. This type of procedure and those described above may be considered a single energy control procedure (instead of multiple procedures) for inspection purposes if all of the
OSHA says we are to have machine-specific LOTO procedures (note that there is an exception to this requirement, but in my scenario, it is not relative). In these procedures, we have to identify the following: the types of energy, their magnitudes, the means/methods to isolate and the means/methods to verify zero energy state (ZES) for
No hunman and no organization is perfect! Although we should strive for perfection in all aspects of business (Production, Quality, Cost Control, and EHS), we often mis-step or possible loose our way altogether. But how bad do things have to get before it is a REAL PROBLEM?
Many THANKS to my NEW {amp}amp; RENEWING Corporate Partners in Safety! since 2007 since 2011 since 2009 since 2/11 2011 Fatality Tracker Electrical 5 (2010 = 90) (2009 = 100) Forklift/Manlift Mobile Equipment{amp}nbsp; 27 (2010 = 110) (2009=88) Mining 43 (2010 = 480) (2009 = 586) Explosions 45 (2010 = 246) (2009 = 302) Cranes
I continue to see facilities struggle with the emergency shutdown SOP requirements and how it is all suppose to flow and fit into the daily operations. In this post I will try and lay out a flow to help make sense of these PSM/RMP requirements. I am hopeful you can learn from my mistakes, as
We do not see these types of failures often, but when we do, it can almost always be traced back to human error. Back in 2008, a tube-and-shell heat exchanger catastrophically failed when workers accidentally closed two different valves at two different times between the vessel and its relief valve. On June 10, 2008, operators
Does the title make you scratch your head? I usually get some strange looks when working with a client who is trying to understand what the PSM compliance cycle looks like. To start with, let’s look at what OSHA/EPA requires in our operating procedures: 1910.119(f)(1)(ii) Operating limits 1910.119(f)(1)(ii)(A) Consequences of deviation 1910.119(f)(1)(ii)(B) Steps required to
