Many organizations have become very good at identifying the ACTIVE failures associated with an accident; however, in almost all of the accident investigations I have been involved with, I find LATENT failures to play a bigger role than active failures. But that is a really hard pill for most organizations to swallow. But there is a tool within our process safety management system that is specifically designed to identify LATENT failures that lie dormant until that day they all align, and coupled with the ACTIVE failures, result in our accident.
However, many organizations’ approach to their 3-year PSM/RMP audit(s) is a LATENT failure in and of itself! When these audits are viewed as a “regulatory-check-the-box” requirement rather than a “verification” of the management system, they fail to serve their intended purpose. And this is how auditing becomes a LATENT FAILURE.