Operator round check is safeguarding

Operator round check is safeguarding

All process plant had production/process technician to perform round check at the production/process area. This round check is part of their daily task performing checking that process are running as per intended design philosophy. How this operator role can become plant safeguarding?

Production operator is actually a most sophisticated CCTV that process plant could had. How can human become CCTV? Because this CCTV could immediately respond, communicate even stop risky activity at site. That’s why operator is actually very reliable safeguarding for process plant. It is plant management responsibility to manage and really appreciate this safeguarding. In most cases operator are identified as weak safeguarding due to concept “human make mistake”, does plant instrumentation not broke down or giving false reading?

Operator intervention is crucial to prevent escalation of event even to ensure “high-high” alarm is not triggered. There is organization that really taking consideration of operator availability in their HAZOP study. This organization true believe to concept that operator are available and really can respond for process interruption within 30 minutes are consider their safeguarding during HAZOP study.

For occupational safety, operator also play role to ensure any non-routine maintenance job by contractor are well manage by permit to work (PTW)system and they helping to ensure the handover of facility to contractor are done properly. Some organization require process operator put their signature to ensure they really aware, in-control and responsible for any activity perform in their process area.

Looking back in their role, process/production operator actually to have same or not much different treatment from control panel technician. Both are very important to play their role in ensure their plant are run safely.

P/S : production operator also are the backbone for Emergency Respond Team.

Fire water system

Basic Fire Water Pump (FWP) system

Fire water system are pressurize and ready to be use at any time. To ensure system always pressurize and could meet usage water demand, it need pump to play that important roles. This time let us discuss on fire water pump arrangement. 

Normally fire water pump consist of 3 type or function/duty. the pump are:

i) Jockey pump ; to make up small pressure loss in the fire water main ring.

ii) Duty pump ; to give more pressure when there is significant pressure lost in the fire water main ring.

iii) Standby pump: Diesel driven pump to support duty pump when there is very high pressure lost due to high water demand from fire water main ring.

Both Jockey and Duty pump are electrical driven pump. Standby pump are design to be independent source of power so that when there is electrical failure, it still can perform the duty to supply water to the fire water main ring.

Diesel fire water pump startup could be set using:
1. Battery
2. Compress air

There is 2 type of testing that normally done to ensure FWP system in good condition which is:
1. Functional test : testing that ensure pump running sequence are as per design. This test done weekly by some organization. 
2. Capacity test : testing to check pump could delivered water volume as per intended design and factory test. This test normally done annually. Normally insurance company would like to check this report.

ER

Emergency Respond : Fire water system

Nobody want an accident to happen but we always prepared for respond for emergency. In Malaysia's CIMAH regulation 1996, there is specific regulations mention on Emergency respond and preparedness. Thus it is importance to understand and implement a good emergency respond management so that accident could be manage at early stage and prevent from escalation of emergency to crisis mode.

Fire water system is one of main focus in emergency respond facility. As we aware fire is the biggest nightmare that process plant want to avoid. Cause from fire accident, it could cause fatality, major asset damage, business interruption and many chain of effect. that's why a good process plant need to ensure their fire water design philosophy is good enough to ensure it can be rely on during emergency. 

Fire water demand is base on identified risk of the facility. to get ideas on some of fire water capacity, table below could be use as a guide:

Tripod Beta Chronicles

Tripod Beta part 3

In last episode, we had discuss on Failed Barrier. So this time let's continue with "Missing Barrier". This missing barrier should be easy understand cause we identified something that is suppose to be there. So when it is missing, it is 1 of the cause for incident to happen or an effect  to the object.

Let's look how the missing barrier is using in Tripod beta diagram:

In missing barrier, the barrier is actually control that is suppose to be available, aware and acknowledge by all stakeholders in the organization. It's not a best approach that is widely use outside of the organization. By this understanding, the investigation team can directly identified what is the "underlying cause" that had cause the control is missing during the incident.

Tripod Beta Chronicles

Tripod Beta Part 2

Sambungan dari tripod beta episode 1 hari tu, kali ni focus kepada cabang "Fail barrier"

Fail barrier ni agak mendalam kajiannya. Ini kerana dari fail barrier akan menimbulkan pula 3 dahan iaitu:

i) Immediate cause : unsafe acts or technicals failures due to human error.

ii) Pre-conditions : situational or psycological "state of mind" that promote human error.

iii) Underlying cause : Deficiences or anormalies that create the pre-conditions.

Pengenalpastian underlying cause, ia disertai pula mengkategorikan apakah Basic Risk Factor(BRF) untuk underlying cause tersebut. untuk melihat perkaitan dengan lebih jelas lagi, perhatikan gambarajah dibawah:

Tripod Beta - Tools for Incident investigation

Tripod Beta - Tools for Incident Investigation

Tajuk sebelum ni dah diceritkan bahwa "Tripod Beta(TB)" adalah salah 1 tools utk incident investigation. kenapa pada pendapat saya TB ini one of best tools adalah atas beberapa sebab. 

1. kedudukan yang jelas antara Hazard, event dan object. 

HAZARD(agent of change) : anything that can cause harm. dalam kes tripod beta, dari hazard tu yang melepasi protective barrier menyebabkan Event berlaku.

EVENT : menceritakan apakah yang berlaku.

OBJECT ; Kesan dari Event yang berlaku menyebabkan kerosakan, kecederaan atau pencemaran. sekiranya ada barrier yang melindungi object, maka kesannya mungkin tidak teruk.

2. terdapat 3 jenis barrier.

EFFECTIVE BARRIER : Barrier yg wujud and efective untuk mengelakkan kejadian yg lebih teruk.

FAIL BARRIER : Barrier yang sedia ada dikenalpasti wujud semasa kejadian tetapi gagal mengelakkan dari kemalangan terjadi.

MISSING BARRIER : barrier yg tidak ada semasa kejadian. mengikut prosedur, barrier ini sepatutnya sedia ada dan dipraktiskan tetapi semasa kejadian ia tiada atau tidak dipraktiskan.

nanti plk sambung lagi

INCIDENT INVESTIGATION

INCIDENT INVESTIGATION FOR PROCESS SAFETY

Kejadian kemalangan adalah peluang dan ruang pembelajaran yang sangat mahal. ini kerana tiada sesiapa atau syarikat apa pun yg mahukan kemalangan terjadi agar mereka boleh belajar dari kemalangan tersebut. oleh itu, apabila terjadi kemalangan, wajiblah kemalangan itu disiasat untuk memahami sebab musabab kemalangan itu berlaku dan bagaimana cara dan kaedahnya agar kejadian yang sama tidak berulang.

Siasatan kemalangan bukanlah ditugaskan kepada seorang individu sahaja. ianya mestilah dilakukan dalam bentuk kumpulan. ini kerana lebih banyak maklumat yg betul dapat dihimpunkan untuk memastikan siasatan kemalangan itu bersifat komprehensif.

Terdapat beberapa kaedah/tools siasatan kemalangan yang digunakan dalam industri. Antara yang biasa digunakan adalah:
1. Tripod Beta analysis.
2. Top set analysis.
3. Failure mode and effect analysis

Mengikur OSHA U.S utk process safety incident investigation, kumpulan siasatan kemalangan mestilah melibatkan orang yang arif berkaitan dengan process. Tidak dilupakan wakil kontraktor sekiranya kemalangan itu melibatkan pekerja/aktiviti kontraktor.

Mengikut OSHA U.S rekod penyimpanan siasatan kemalangan yg melibatkan process safety mestilah disimpan selama 5 tahun. Siasatan kemalangan mestilah dimulakan dlm tempoh 48 jam selepas kemalangan berlaku. Siasatan kemalangan mestilah mempunyai maklumat-maklumat berikut:

1. Tarikh kemalangan.
2. Tarikh siasatan bermula.
3. Kenyataan ringkas kemalangan.
4. Faktor yang mengakibatkan kemalangan.
5. Langkah pembaikan dari siasatan kemalangan