The success of your PSM program is centered around effective leadership. What does this look like from a practical perspective? Here are some observations and suggestions, starting with general safety leadership and then following on with some PSM specifics
- The culture and safety ethos of a company starts at the top with the board and CEO. The CEO must demonstrate that he or she cares, and the actions that do this cannot be delegated. It has been my experience that you may not be able to change attitudes overnight but behaviors certainly can be.
- How does the CEO do this? Not like Homer Simpson, by walking around encouraging his workmates to “safen up”. Here are a few suggestions.
- The board and CEO should actively perform due diligence on their business. This includes understanding their risks, providing resources to address them and verifying the performance of measures.If Process Safety is important to your business……….
- Ensure you and your senior staff understand what Process Safety is and what it involves. Do they understand how to drive PSM? and what elements are critical to drive process safety performance such as MoC, PtW, Risk Management etc.
- Ensure the relevant parts of the company are aware of safety assessment assumptions and that these are identified and maintained e.g. maintenance routines and their frequency or that the PtW system is functioning correctly.
- Make key Process Safety activities part of routine reporting and KPI’s for the leaders responsible. eg…..
- trip and alarm testing – the number carried out, the number failed and corrected.
- incident investigations – recommendations implemented
- audits carried out, safety systems bypassed or changed.
- HAZOP’s undertaken and actions closed out (100% before commissioning).